Humor – NEARING THE END OF THE LINE

EMPTY-DESK SYNDROME: Oh, Danny Boy

Danny occupied a seat in one of my General English classes for a while, way back in the mid-70s.

A sawed-off freshman, standing at maybe four and a half feet, bright blue eyes, a thatch of blond hair, and a crooked little nose that very likely came from somebody’s knuckle sandwich (possibly his old man’s). A scrapper, like most short boys turn out to be, defying all odds in a series of I’ll-show-you-who’s-the short-one dust-ups. A hair-trigger, instantly-ignitable fuse, turning pit bull whenever confronted by aggressive, all-powerful, male authority figures.

But that’s why he liked me so much. I was decidedly not one of the faculty nazis.

I started out as a blank slate when my first signed contract landed me on my feet in a high school English classroom. A blank slate being coached by the administrative cabal to ‘Go in there and show’em who’s boss. Make’em fear you or they’ll eat you alive. Be a General George S. Patton, and give’em hell. They are not your friends. They are them, and you are you. Keep it that way!

And next thing I knew, I found myself trapped in a classroom with thirty ‘they’ll eat you alive!’ predators of all sizes and shapes, and all of’em staring at me at once! Right away I was feeling like Catch 22’s Major Major Major Major—me, desperately striving to fudge being just that All-Powerful Authority Figure… something I was finding out quickLY I wasn’t any good at. Because…

Turns out… I’m a bleedin’-heart empath.

Early on, I became horrified to realize that somehow I was finding myself beginning to (oh no) like them. Even though (and I’m swearin’ this is true on a stack of Bibles here) I was doing my best trying NOT to!

What could be wrong with me, I wondered, spinelessly letting down my defenses like that?

Before long I was becoming known as one of ‘those teachers,’ the patsy who found it nearly impossible to say no when one of’em would ask me for the bathroom pass during class, something that was harped against over and over during just about every faculty meeting I ever attended. And you know, I’ve gotta say I felt pretty damned sheepish and guilty about that. Like I was letting down not just my colleagues, but The American Way.

(But I mean, hell, if it was me and I had to go, I’d be making a bee-line for the men’s room… just like my fellow faculty would if it were them.

(But, REMEMBER, Mr. Tom… “They are them, and you are you.”)

I could barely look at myself in the men’s’ bathroom mirror. But… come on, what was I supposed to do? I mean, they were all little individuals, these kids, weren’t they. Little human beings (kind of like myself actually, what with all their questions, and fears, and joys, their flaws, their baggage, and their disarming and often hilarious senses of humor)! I mean, they all had such interesting little personalities!

Still, from early on I was feeling like the World War II stalag escapee, disguised in a stolen nazi uniform and hoping to pass for a member of the Third Reich.

So. Go ahead. Say it. I was a “teacher” who was never cut out to be a teacher. I’ve accepted that.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So: Danny hated authority figures. And Danny liked me. Even liked my English class.

Well, not the English parts of it so much, necessarily, but the me part. Which was cool. I’d be telling my students stories about my childhood as topics for writing prompts, and now and then read aloud to them parts of their literature reading assignments, to give’em a head start and to tickle his interests. But where Danny was concerned, I would honestly listen to him when he had something he wanted to say (which was often), whereas the majority of the faculty, the nazi contingent? Hell, they weren’t all that interested in him enough to do that. He honestly had interesting things to say though. Plus, he had a wicked sense of humor.

So I came to like him as well. A lot of it was that Danny was the classic underdog and, damnit, I’ve always had a soft spot for underdogs. Still do. Therefore, it was an adventure for me getting to know this angry little hothead over the few months I got to spend with him, getting to begin to know what made him tick. I really felt it a privilege to get to see and know the good-hearted little side of the guy. And I’ve gotta say, when he was in my class his attitude seemed so bright and cheery.

But there was also something about that very thing which saddened me too, something I couldn’t put my finger on. I mean, there were all these red flags hinting at some occasional violence so obviously woven into his past. I mean yeah, he was getting into fist fights at school, but this felt that more than that.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But then one day he disappeared, was just flat-out gone. And after five consecutive days of recording his seat empty while taking attendance, the kids informed me, “He’s gone, and he ain’t coming back.” They were hazy about the circumstances however and, me, I was figuring despite what the kids told me, he’d more than likely just been temporarily suspended again for something.

Anyway, I decided to drop by the assistant principal’s office to find out what was what. The kids were right— the administration had indeed given him the ol’ hit-the-road-Jack, that’s-all-she-wrote boot.

Turned out our gorilla of a numb-nuts football coach…

(sorry, I just didn’t like him and, yes, he was that very same simian from one of my previous posts, titled “Behind Closed Doors,” who’d provoked the teacher’s little mess-hall-riot with after blowing a cigarette smoke-ring into our science teacher’s face and saying, with all the humanity of Shane’s Jack Palance, “Hey, I know what. How ‘bout I stub this butt out right in that ugly kike face of yours?!”) (yeah— that guy…)

…decided to teach our little boy some proper manners (irony intended) by pinning Danny up against the gymnasium wall during a phys. ed. class and showing him, up close and personal, his big hairy iron fist.

However… unbeknownst to our self-proclaimed, staff Charles Atlas, the little soul he had chosen to manhandle was The Son of Dr. Bruce Banner— that’s right, a.k.a. The Incredible Hulk, Jr. So yes, Coach was taken a little by surprise finding out he had a rabid little Tasmanian Devil going berserk in all directions down at the other end of his arm! And according to the other kids in the gym class, Danny managed to get in quite a few good ones (BIFF! POW! THOK!), before he eventually got sat on and pinned down.

(Oh, what I would’ve given to have seen the look on Coaches’ face when it was HIS nose that took a punch. Go, Danny!)

But… nonetheless Danny was gone. M.I.A. And that hurt. Because it left me with that always unexpected empty-desk-syndrome that all career teachers have to contend with from time to time, often for circumstances much worse than a mere expulsion. But I missed him.

And what stung the most was knowing that his expulsion was so unnecessary. There are so many different ways to handle a potential disciplinary problem other than brute force, you know? Coach, however, didn’t think that way. No, his motto? Always out-muscle your problem (especially if they’re smaller than you) as a first resort.

Actually, it was pretty obvious that Coach and Danny had something in common: an acute need for anger management training. I suspected both of them suffered from secret feelings of being seen and judged as less than down deep inside.

But, oh well. It was what it was. What could I do about it? Nothing apparently.

A week passed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Then…

STRANGE THING #1 happened.

I was sitting at my desk after school one afternoon when the office secretary buzzed me over the intercom.

“Hey there, Mr. Lyford?”

“Yeah?”

“The principal wants to see you in his office.”

Oh shit! “What…? Right now?”

“You got it.”

“Uhmmm… be right there.” What started going on in my gut right then could have been the perfect inspiration for the Jaws’ theme. I mean, I hadn’t done anything wrong.

Had I?

His door was open.

“Close the door,” he said. So I did that and plopped down in the hot seat in front his desk.

“What’s up?” I asked, feeling cautious.

“Any chance you might be looking for a job, Tom?”

What the hell…? That was just me doing my little internal little double-take. But he was smiling a friendly smile.

“Beg your pardon?”

“Looking for work?”

“Not right at this moment I’m not, no.” I put on a matching smile and hoped for the best, asking playfully, “Why? This where I’m about to get my pink slip so that I’d very well better start looking for a job? Or what? I mean…?”

“Oh no no no. It’s just… I’ve got this job for you, if you’re interested.”

Well, I hafta say I never saw that coming. “What’re you talking about? A job? I’ve got two jobs already. Here, and the Phillips 66 part-time. But you know that.”

“I do. But I’ve got an offer to make anyway. You don’t have to take it, of course. But I figure you might. It involves our Danny.”

Double-take #2. “Danny?!”

“Yeah. His mom and a couple of counselors are feeling he got a raw deal. And they want us to do something to try to remedy that, to find a better way for the kid, to whatever extent we can.”

“You wanna know what: he did get a raw deal far as I’m concerned, considering who the other guy was in the confrontation.”

“Water under the bridge.”

“Sure, sure. He wins football games for you. I get that. So we’ll just go with water under the bridge. Yeah.”

“Tom, we’re here to discuss looking forward. Not...”

“I was just sayin’. But… yeah. Sure. OK. Whatever.”

“And point taken, alright? However, moving right along… turns out you seem to be just about the only teacher Danny seems to’ve been able to get along with.”

“Well, yeah. There’s this: I do treat him like he’s a human being, surprise surprise. And on top of that, I’ve never felt the need to try to ‘break’ him, like he was some wild mustang fenced up in a corral.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“Plus… he’s an interesting kid. Down deep inside. He really is. And the way I see it anyway, he’s been through a lot. At home. And everywhere else.”

“I hear you.”

“See, in the weekly journals I have the kids writing, he’s honestly revealed a lot. His life hasn’t been any picnic, you know. And because I let him write about whatever he wants, whatever he needs to express, freely… and because I, you know, actually read and discuss his journal entries with him, he’s pretty much happy to be there.

“So… we getting him back, or what?”

“No. He’s not coming back. At least this year anyway. So, here it is: the powers that be have prompted me to ask you to consider being his special tutor. Outside the classroom. Outside the school.”

“What? Really? Huh! Wow, I dunno. I guess I’ll hafta think about that one.”

“We need your answer right away.”

“Well, I mean… how much time is this gonna take? Like, what kind of schedule might we be looking at here?”

“That would totally be up to you.”

“What… totally?”

“Totally. You’d be in charge of it. Your schedule. And here’s the rest of the details… in what I hope you’ll see as an offer you can’t refuse.”

“Alright, I guess. Lay it on me.”

“First of all, you can meet with him wherever you like. Well, any place except here. He can’t be at the school. But… you know, your place. A café, over a cup of coffee. A park bench. Whatever. Totally up to you. His mom’s OK with that.”

“Wow.”

“Secondly, you’re a professional. And your pay would be commensurate with your professional status. I can guarantee you won’t be unhappy with the financial arrangement.”

“Ah. Money. The universal carrot.”

“But here’s the frosting on the cake. When it’s all said and done, what you’d honestly be getting paid for is… and you’ll find this hard to believe, I’m guessing… I did— is to be his friend.”

“Whoa. ‘Paid to be his friend, you say?’ Hold on. Did I just hear you correctly?”

“You did. And I know, right? But that’s the way the board put it to me. Verbatim.”

“Wow. That’s… really something.”

“It is.“

“I mean, I’d feel kinda creepy. You know, money for friendship and everything…”

“Well see, the board really just wants this whole rat’s nest out of their hair. Get this whole thing behind them.”

“Well, that figures.”

“You would, however, be responsible for covering four generic subjects with him. History. English. Math. And Science. And we would ask, of course, that you keep tabs on his progress. You’d, you know, do your record-keeping. Work out some way, your own way, of calculating and recording a grade for each of the four… but in the end, it’ll be strictly on a pass/fail basis only.”

“Wow. Curiouser and curiouser. I’d say somebody’s really greasing the skids here. I’m feeling all like…what’s his name, Mister Phelps of Mission Impossible? Only that guy was never baited with such positive inducements to ‘accept his missions,”

“On the contrary, considering the young man we’re discussing here, I can hand you a baker’s dozen of faculty names who would beg to differ with you on that, and wouldn’t want to touch this deal with a ten-foot pole.”

“Yeah. I get that, I do. But if you, or they, could ever have seen him in my class on most days, you’d witness that little… often funny human being that I’ve come to know.”

“OK. So, can we get right down to it then? Whatta you think? You in? Or are you out?”

“Well, I think the damn kid needs a break. That’s for sure. He’s been through so much, and always getting the sharp end of the stick. And I mean, honestly? I’ve been pissed off, if you want to know the truth, about the whole way he was just tossed aside. Well, that’s the way it seems to me anyway. But more than that, this whole fiasco has left me feeling… I gotta say, sad.”

“So… you in?”

“So… this does sound like kind of an adventure. Sounds like something I ought to do.”

“Is that a ‘yes’?”

“Well…I could be wrong.”

“Yeah?”

“But… I guess that’s a ‘yes,’ apparently.”

And so it was.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Despite the uncomfortable, guilty weirdness of being paid for ‘being somebody’s friend’ (I mean, never in a million years could I have been led to believe that such an arrangement might even be an allowable possibility under any circumstances), that change in my job description immediately swept away that dark heaviness of my ‘Danny’s empty desk syndrome.’ More than that, it brought the proverbial ‘ray of sunshine’ into my routine life.

I mean, try to imagine this. On a Monday after school, say, you pick the kid up and swing over to Freddy’s Restaurant… and there, along with the coffee and apple pie on the table, you’ve got your pair of history books cracked open. And you’re both into it, the assignment I mean. Or on a Saturday morning, over at the Chicken Coop perhaps, the coffee and breakfast (which is on you, of course since, with what you’re unnecessarily being paid for friendship, you can afford it) are providing the backdrop for you and him to discuss his latest journal pages.

And always, on the opposite side of booth you have a student who is both (A) delighted to be rid of the school he just was never fitting in with, (B) honestly happy to see, and be, with you, and (C) on top of that, has honestly read or written his assignment and is ready to talk about it.

And then who knows, maybe even on a Sunday the two of you might walk the sidewalks a mile or two of all over town, talking about Life and where it’s taking you… him telling you stories about his life and you telling him stories about yours.

Considering that all during my career, to that point, I’d been off and on somewhat successfully juggling classes of between twenty and thirty kids at once, this one-on-one thing was such a luxury.

He seemed to be loving my English assignments by the way (mostly because he liked me); really liking the history stuff (we were reading Howard Fast’s gripping historical novel, April Morning, about the battles of Concord and Lexington); wasn’t caring much for general science; and really wasn’t feeling any love whatsoever for math (a kid after my own heart, there). So, science and math were, yeah, more of a challenge for us.

But on the whole, this arrangement was great for him, I was sure of that, and good for me as well. Looking back on the set-up we had, the expression ‘happy days’ springs to mind.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After about three weeks or so of the arrangement running like a well-oiled machine, the weather had started turning colder. And the only sweatshirt Danny had was still hanging in his locker back at school, along with a few other things he wanted to retrieve. So, on a Friday, about an hour or so after the final bell of the day had released all or most of the kids back into the world, he and I pulled up in the school parking lot. We got out of the car and slipped into the building through a side door.

He worked the combination on his locked locker, popped the door open, and gathered up his stuff. My classroom was only a few doors down, and so we also dropped in there for me to grab some things as well.

That done, and with me fishing my classroom key back out of my pocket, we had just started to step back out into the hallway when some deep, thunderous voice bellowed, “God damn it! Just what the hell you think you’re doing in here!”

And there he was! The neanderthal that had really started this whole fiasco in the first place! Marching double-time and charging straight for us!

“Get you sorry ass outta here before I…”

“Hey!” I yelled, stepping in front of Danny, who was half in and half out of my classroom. “Stop right there, Coach! He’s with me!”

“Well he’s gonna be with ME in a second! So get outta my way!”

“No! I said stop! He’s legit! And we’re just leaving anyway!”

“Damn straight you’re leavin!”

Coach and I, scrawny little English teacher me, were now standing nose-to-nose in a near Mexican stand-off!

“He’s not supposed to be here anyway, damnit! He’s expelled!”

“Think I don’t know that!? Look! We’re just getting some things from his locker! He’s not bothering you!”

“Oh, he’s bothering me! You just better believe he’s bothering me!”

My mouth’s open, ready to yell a response, but a bellow from behind me cuts me off!

“You want me to LEAVE, you fat fucker?! OK then! I’m leavin’!”

And before either of us can manage to say anything to that… B A N G! ..what sounds like an echoing gunshot jumps me, and I’m pretty sure jumps the fat fucker in front of me as well, half out of our shoes! Then I’m suddenly aware that Danny’s sprinting for the door we came in through, and that the loud bang that jarred my teeth was actually my classroom door having been whipped shut at Mach 5!

“DANNY!” I yell.

“Let’im go, the little asshole. What the hell’re are you even doing with him anyway?”

Apparently, and unfortunately, Coach hadn’t gotten the memo about Danny’s and my arrangement. Why, I’ll never know.

“ME? How about what the hell’re YOU doing here at all, masquerading as a teacher?! DANNY!” I yelled, taking after him.

But he’d already zipped out of sight through the exit! And by the time I stumbled outside, he’d disappeared! He was nowhere to be seen!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Turned out I hadn’t fully grasped just how disappeared he’d actually become.

Turned out he’d run away from home.

Turned out this wasn’t the first time he’d run away from home either…

I was devastated.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A couple months crawled by.

And so, out of sight, out of mind, the loss of M.I.A. Danny was gradually fading with acceptance.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

OK. One evening, right after dinner, I was sitting in my stuffed chair, reading some book or other, when I heard the phone ringing. I heard my wife picking up the phone in the next room and saying “Hello?” Then I could hear her murmuring something quietly.

Next thing I knew, she was standing next to my chair and looking down at me with a puzzled expression.

“What?” I asked.

“You’ve got a phone call,” she said tentatively, looking perplexed.

“Who is it?”

“The County Sheriff.”

“The who?! The… County sheriff?! Jeez... what the hell?”

I got up, walked out to the kitchen, and took the phone. “Hello?”

“Hi. So… is this Mr. Lyford? Mr. Thomas Lyford?”

“It is. Why?”

“Tell me. Are you familiar with a Danny Brown, Mr. Lyford…?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

End of Part I. Stay tuned for Part II.

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ON THE LIFE-AND-DEATH IMPORTANCE OF ONE-INCH MARGINS…

A DAY IN THE LIFE

My free period unexpectedly got blown out of the water this morning. Thanks to me having to round up three senior girls, escort them to the Guidance Office to meet with their parents and counselor, and deal with the ugly allegations that this trio’s bullying has been seriously making some freshman girl’s life not worth living. And without said free period, I’ve been running behind six ways from Sunday all day

The copier in the teachers’ lounge’s gone belly-up again. Murphy’s Law. Par for the course, what with all thirty-four of us desperately champing at the bit for the printer, semester exams needing to be ready to go by Monday morning.

I’m on the second day of an at-least-two-day headache, and this one a real doozy. The ringing of the bells the bells the bells out in the hall keep setting my teeth on edge. Can you say “frayed nerves”?

And the icing on the cake? It’s my week for manning after-school detention-hall duty. Yeah. So here I sit, once again, locked in the cage with a tiny tribe of Welcome-Back-Kotter’s sweat hog and yahoos.

And wouldn’t you just know it, here he is, God’s little freshman gift to teachers, loitering before my desk with some wrinkled notebook page in hand that might’ve just been fished out of my wastebasket.

And he’s smiling. Smiling like a car salesman.

Someone should clue him in: Warning, Will Robinson! This teacher is a powder-keg with a short fuse this morning...

Ah. I don’t really mean that. That’s just the headache and the stress talking. I’m especially fond of the freshmen. Even Wes, here. I like to think of myself as the freshman welcome committee here at the Academy. Because, I mean they need some teachers who aren’t nazis too, right? And besides, Freshmen are new here, meaning they haven’t already heard my dad jokes, bad puns, and stories. My kind of audience.

Although as I focus on the paper in his hand, I realize I need to put on my Tough Man Persona, at least for a while.

“It’s late, Wes,” I point out. “Due yesterday.”

“Here now, though.”

“Ah. Yes. Now.”

“A day late and a dollar short,” he adds, smiling winningly. “But. See, I did do the assignment.”

“And… I’m guessing that’s it?” Me, nodding toward the fist holding the paper.

“Yep. And I think you’re gonna like this one.”

“You… think. Hmmm. OK. Lay it on me then, I guess.”

Dutifully he does. Lays the “essay” before me on my desk, face-up.

I eyeball it for all of four seconds, return my gaze to him and, then with the eraser tip of my pencil, push the page three or four inches back across the desktop toward him. The same way murder squad detectives on TV always ‘suggest’ that their prime suspects take a hard second look at the photo of some victim’s corpse.

“Do it over,” I say simply, knowing it sounds harsh but you know what? I’m just not in the mood today.

His face, gone from smiling now to… kind of beaming for some reason (which is a little maddening) asks, “OK, but…why’s that? I mean, you didn’t even read it.”

“Nor will I… until it’s rewritten.” Doing good here as Bad Cop…

“But … it’s good. I even used irony in it.”

“Which you’ll have to wait for me to… ‘appreciate’ it, once it gets rewritten.”

We look at each other for a few moments. The hairy-eyeball I’m trying to give him ought to be making him turn tail and scamper away. God, why does he all the time hafta keep that smile on high-beams like that? Why can’t he just be pissed off like any normal kid would, for crying out loud? I mean, that Howdy Doody mug of his!

Since he’s not saying anything, I do. “Oh come on, Wes. Do I really have to spell it out for you?”

No answer.

“Oh. Sure. Right, of course I do. OK. I’ll tell you why. The assignment sheet (hey, you remember the assignment sheet, don’t you?) lists four specific criteria you had to follow on this one. And, as I told you yesterday, no more getting away with your lazy sloppiness.”

“Yeah but the irony...”

“Stop!” (I mean, listen to this guy, right?)“Don’t you be yeah-butting me, Wes, OK?Man, you’d think I would’ve tape-recorded this speech years ago. That way every time you guys claim to have lost the assignment sheet, I could just send you back to your seat with a cassette player and say, ‘Sit down. Press Play!’”

“Hah. and ‘Be kind. Re-wind.’ Yeah.”

“1: Final draft of essay to be written on white composition paper.”

“Check,” he says.

“Right. You did do that. Moving right along.”

“2: Essay to be written in ink. Not in pencil.”

“Check again. Oh-oh-oh... but not in crayon, either. Hah. See? I remember you saying that in class.”

“Bully for you.” Gawd, he’s so good-natured?

“3: Essay will be neatly written in cursive.”

“Check, check, and… TRIPLE- CHECK! Hey, see? I’m acing it. Well, I mean I will be, especially when you read my irony.”

“4: Final draft will employ ONE–INCH MARGINS.”

“That one sound a little familiar?”

“Oops.”

“Yeah. Oops. I’m not seeing any margins here.”

“I guess you got me, boss,” he says.

“Right. I got you. Now… there’s your paper. Take it. Go and do it over. With… the one-inch margins this time. Then, and only then, will I read… will I enjoy… your captivating irony. Capiche? Now— go, and sin no more.”

“You got it,” he says. With a nod and a wink, he picks up his paper, turns, and shuffles off toward back his desk (thank God), leaving me pitying his parents.

Phew! That’s over. Oh, my head!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But… as little as five minutes later, here he is again. Back. And with what looks to be that very same damn shabby page still in hand.

“Done,” he says with obvious pride.

“Wait just a darn minute,” I say. There is no way, absolutely NO way you’ve re-done that essay this quickly!”

“Hey I really did. Check it out.” And with that, he once again graces my desk with his allegedly ironic opus. So what else can I do? I look down at the thing. And man, I can’t believe it! Because yeah… it is the exact same damn shabby piece of writing that it was five minutes ago!

“LOOK at this! I told you I re-did it!”

“You did. And hey! I fixed the margins. See?”

“NO! What you did w…”

But then, what I’m actually looking at fully registers. Jesus. On each the left-and-right-hand sides of the page, this wise-ass little weasel has Scotch-taped a long, one-inch-wide, ten-inches-long strip of paper! I mean… he taped-on frickin’ margins!!! So immediately, I start trying to pump myself up to properly muster all the deadly venom of my… chagrin… in order to lay him out good in lavender!

(See, I had to say ‘trying’ there because… well, something’s wrong. Blowing my stack just isn’t coming as easily as I want it to! I mean, I dunno, it’s kind of like my wannabe-aggressiveness is… stuttering or something! Even though I’m surprisingly impressed with this kid’s surprising brass, what I want to do is let this kid have it with both barrels, but… what’s going on with me? I mean, something’s bubbling up inside me that’s… well, something that’s bubbling up autonomically… like what happens when you’re seconds away from vomiting and you just KNOW there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop it, nothing you can do to keep it down!

I try to muscle this down anyway, but it’s like I just felt my frickin’ diaphragm burst like Mount Vesuvius! And God help me…up the autonomic belly laugh COMES!)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Uhmmm…? Mister L? …Mister L??? Are you…alright? You’re not… cryin’, are you?”

My face, hidden beneath convulsing shoulders (down upon the hide-away pillow of my crossed arms) comes jack-in-the-boxing straight up from my desk so suddenly he recoils! “Of course not! I’m laughing my butt off here is what I’m doing!” And I tack on a quiet little “…damn you!” just for him.

But God, it’s frustrating when you’re mad as a wet hen and… and laughter just comes barreling right out of you without your permission. Your self-control just gets kicked to the curb and runs rampant for just about however long it wants. You can want to will yourself to be steamingly pissed-off but, no, your body’s in control, isn’t it— not you! So you just have to ride it out.

But oddly, after you have been so out of control like that, for some reason when it’s over you just end up feeling so free and fresh and good. I mean, it feels like this outburst just breached some flood-stage gate inside of me or something, punched a hole in it, and released an out-gushing of all my silly, uptight, Ichabod Crane hang-ups of the day in a wonderful, though violent-as-a-sneeze, catharsis.

Human behavior. Go figure, right?

And even though I have finally ridden it out, my mouth is still stretched in its autonomic, idiotic grin— I can feel it. Apparently, I’m having a good time

But something’s happened here. And I’m left pondering what the hell’s this kid just done to me, the little jerk! Up-ended me, that’s what. Caught me right off guard, big-time! Because… well, that whole thing was just so unexpected… and so damn funny! I mean, it hit me right between the eyes when I wasn’t even looking….

“So… you OK now?”

“What, me?” I’ve gotten myself pretty much under control now. Enough so I can communicate again, at least. “Not entirely,” I tell him. “Because something really weird and back-assward just went down here.”

“Man, I’d say so!”

“Because me and you? We just had us a moment, didn’t we. I mean, there I was, going to war with you practically! About to wrestle you down, pin you to the mat, and shove the importance of margins down your throat. Even if it killed us both to do it.”

“Jeez. OK…???”

“And then you went and yanked the mat right out from under me! Had me body-slammed and pinned before I knew what hit me! And I mean, look at how you did that! You didn’t even use force! You just did it with… nothing but your unusual off-the-wall humor! Oh! yeah! And with irony.“

“Really?”

“Really. And hey, how ironic is that, huh?” But no, what you just did? It really got my attention there. Big time. I’m serious. I mean, in the blink of an eye, you… my outwardly mediocre student… just taught your high school English teacher, me, something I’ve really needed to take a serious look at. My priorities.”

“If you say so, man. But…. hey. You’re not… like, off your meds or something are you?”

“No! I’m on my stupid meds. But you know, it’s like you just gave me a refresher course… well, refresher lesson… on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

**MARGINS ARE BOTH RELATIVE AND CONTROVERSIAL**

See, that’s what I can’t get over. Because… well, after all, everything is relative, isn’t it. And I mean, margins? Hell yeah! They’re relative. Of course they are. And so over-rated. And you just practically toilet-plunger-ed the honest absurdity (the sheer and utter ridiculousness of margins being thought of as so all-that-important) down my throat! Well done.”

“Er… so, what, does that mean... margins are out? From now on? No more one-inch-margins?”

“No, of course not. But it does mean I have to go back and recalibrate how much weight I put on them when it comes to grading.”

“But… why keep them at all? If they’re so relative and all. Why not do the class a favor and just dump’em altogether…?”

(click!) (that’s me, doing the classic double-take right here) “Whoa whoa whoa!” And then, looking him straight in the eye until I know I’ve got his full attention focused squarely and seriously on me. “Just a darn minute here, kiddo. No.” And I say that with a weak laugh. (heh heh)

“Yeah. That’s what I figured. Sure. But why not, though?”

“But anyway… just NO! OK…?”

“ That’s what I figured. Sure. Surprise surprise. So much for the Theory of Relativity.”

“Well Wes, there’s also something called Chaos Theory, you know? (You should know. I mean, from what I’ve observed, in some ways chaos seems to be part of your lifestyle.) Now, we don’t want the world to descend into the Dark Ages Void of Chaos, do we.”

“What, I’m getting a vote then?”

“Which is pretty much what might happen if we start whittling away, one at a time, all these little rules that keep us in check as a civilized society. You need to look at The Big Picture: Get rid of margins today. Then complete sentences tomorrow. Next thing you know, we’ll be back to living in caves and painting the stories of our lives in pictograms on the walls.”

“Can you also say windbag?”

“Yeah. I can. I majored in Windbagology in college.”

“I can believe it. How about hypocrisy? Can you say that?”

“Me? Hypocrisy? What’s that? Never heard of it.”

“Well you should’ve, Mister Relativity. Mister margins-are-no-longer-important-but-we’ll-keep’em-anyway.”

“Hey. Don’t forget. This English teacher who needs to keep his job.”

“Oh yeah. Mister sell-out.”

“Or Mr. Lyford who… oh gimme a break, Mister Lazy, Mister I-Don’t-Care-About-My-Future.”

“Well, I don’t.“

“Well, I do. I really do! So. Let me tell you what I am willing to do. I’m going to cut you a deal.”

“Big deal, yeah? OK, let’s hear it.”

“Yes, but first of all, tomorrow… when I wake up, shower, get dressed… this conversation never happened, OK? One-inch margins will still go on ruling the world as they always have. And one-inch margins will, as always, be regarded as crucial absolutes, not the secretly-acknowledged relative entities we’ve acknowledged and agreed on this afternoon, you dig?”

“Ooh. An offer I can’t refuse! Right. What I figured.”

“Hey. There’s a Part 2 in this deal, which I’ll get to in a minute. OK?

“But… let’s be clear. You and I? As people? Not as teacher and student? Sure, yes, we both know that what’s written in between those margins is the main thing. But as teacher and student, we both have to realize that how you learn to present yourself in the future job market is going to become very important. And that presenting yourself with a wrinkled, messy, sprawling jumble of unreadable writing spilled all over the page is something you need to practice NOT doing. Bad habits tend to stick.”

“Blah blah blah. Save it.”

“Alright. I’ll save it. But OK. Here’s the deal. Guess what: you just scored yourself an A on this paper. Sight unseen. (Although I will read it and get back to you.) You also get (…wait for it) my respect today, having shown yourself to be a lot brighter than you’ve previously been letting on. I hope that means something to you.”

“Well, I won’t be saying no to the A at least…”

“Whereas… on the other side of the coin, when the next assigned essay comes around, you not only will have those absolute one-inch margins in place, but the paper? The physical paper it’s written on…? It will not be some wrinkled or food-stained scrap you stole from my waste basket, you dig? It’ll be pristine. You dig? The paper will come in on time, or suffer the consequences. You dig? And as far as your grade on the next essay is concerned? I honestly can’t imagine it’ll end up being an A; however I can easily imagine it being a big fat zero. So, you’re on notice.

“And by the way, the worst thing you’ve done today is let it slip that the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz actually has had a brain all along. And that, dear friend, is something that can, and will, be used against you in a court of… I dunno… of English Grammar and Composition.”

“Well… that’s harsh,” he says with a sarcastic grin.

“And in the meantime, gimme your essay back. I do intend to read what you’ve written. And I’m curious about your use of irony as well. But whatever I find in it, the A is written in stone. We’ve just jump-started a winning streak where your grade in English is concerned. Don’t. Blow. That. Off. OK?”

A few moments go by in silence.

“Hey Wes. I’m waiting for my thank-you over here. Once given and received, and what with your detention sentence just now officially adjudicated as ‘time-served,’ you will hereby be ordered to take ownership of your sleazily-weaseled A and vacate the premises. Any questions? No? OK then. Go. And sin no more?”

“Uhmmm… well, thanks.”

At the door, he turns and says, “Next essay? I’m writing it in crayon on a brown paper bag!”

“Beat it, Freshman!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

Man, how do these damn kids keep getting me to like them so much???

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BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

A couple days ago I was haphazardly streaming my way through YouTube heaven when I happened to stumble upon a clip from a 1984 movie I hadn’t thought about in decades, a clip that got an immediate giggle out of me and, at the same time, felt like an old friend. That movie is Teachers.

**TEACHERS (1984)**
**Tagline: They fall asleep in class. Throw ink on each other. Never come in Mondays. And they’re just the teachers.**

And despite being the typical, somewhat cheesy 1984 comedy that it is, it really caught on with us teachers all over the country back in the day, leaving us all feeling somehow exonerated (you know, from always getting ragged on for having such the cushiest job in the world, getting all our summers off with pay, and then forever being the butt of that old adage: “Those who can, DO; those who can’t, TEACH”).

Now, there are a number of great ‘teacher movies’ out there on Netflix, Prime, Tubi, or whichever, a few of my all-time favorites being Up the Down Staircase (1967), To Sir With Love (1967), The Paper Chase (1973), The Breakfast Club (1985), and Dead Poets’ Society (1989). These five are equally as entertaining as Teachers, but seem to have been scripted with just a little more class.

However, whereas they can be characterized as maintaining a sharper focus perhaps on particular aspects of the classroom world, Teachers manages to leave no stone unturned. It manages to hit on practically every conceivable thing that could go wrong (and often has) in that school-calendar-world of students, teachers, and administrators.

And in the same way M*A*S*H and Catch-22 expose the absurdities of war—

and Office Space exposes the virtual Chinese water torture of mundane cubicle-life with its personnel chained to a daily grind of filling out useless forms, fighting with faulty office fax equipment, and putting up with obnoxious superiors—

**…STOLE MY STAPLER… BURN THIS PLACE DOWN…**

Teachers exposes practically every single one of the possible chaotic frustrations of the profession. Basically it’s a comic catalog of all the classic “zoo” foibles common to the professional educators’ world.

And sure, “Zoo” is likely to come across as a little too harsh an over-exaggeration for you remembrances. But that could partly be due to the fact that school boards and administrators always strive to represent their schools publicly as professional ‘well-oiled machines,’ especially in the eyes of the taxpayers, parents, and even their students. In other words, a lot of the (let’s call them) ‘less savory occurrences‘ get effectively swept under the rug of PR.

But hey, what if I’m not even referring to the student body when I say “zoo”? Surprised?

I mean, we can all look back on our high school days and remember our teachers, can’t we. And sure, you loved some. Some were boring as hell. Or even stupid. And some you may remember as being kind of rotten and/or downright mean. But regardless of all that, you felt confident that you knew them, right? And of course you did. To some extent.

To the extent they allowed you to know them. But never fully. Because face it: you were the students, and they were the teachers. They, the adults. And you, the kids.

But… what if I told you (me being the whistle blower here) that behind closed doors, your faculty… yes, your teachers of English, French, Latin, German, Spanish, mathematics, sciences, home ec., orchestra and marching band… your principals and assistant principals… were, in general, surprisingly… not one whit more adult than you or any of your classmates back then?

That behind that faculty lounge door was a bunch of… old “kids?”

Sure. Some were twenty, or maybe twenty-five. Some were in their forties or fifties. And some were shamefully (Good Lord!) still gripping their tenured status with white-knuckled-fists well onto five years or more past their retirement age. Some married, some divorced, and some about to be divorced. Some of them even being bullied, some even doing the bullying? Some ADHD. Some doing drugs. Many needing anger-management classes. And all of them insecure in one way or another.

Well, I kid you not. And yes, I know. They looked like adults, didn’t they. I mean, man, they had looking like adults right down to a science. But let’s get to the truth.

And in so doing, I ask that you join me in watching that clip from Teachers. So for a good time, click on the link below. Then I’ll join you for a little discussion on the other side.

And just so you know, the man in the clip turning the crank on the ancient “office copier” has been nicknamed Ditto by his peers. Why? Because (A) this type of caveman “copier” machine was known as a duplicator, a mimeograph, or… a “ditto machine” (welcome to the past, boys and girls); (B) because Ditto is the one always hogging the office ditto machine with no regard for others; and (C) because he hates teaching, so he’s always cranking off dittoed worksheets to keep his classes busy so he doesn’t really have to teach.

**1980’s CUTTING-EDGE, STATE-OF-THE-ART COPIER**

His classroom management style is this: he keeps all of the students’ desks facing away from him, so they won’t view him while he sits in the back of the room reading the newspaper. His students have been trained to pick up their daily copy of the freshly-dittoed worksheets from his desk upon entering the classroom, to sit quietly at their desks working on that worksheet, and, when the bell rings, to deposit their completed worksheets back on his desk upon leaving. This goes on day after day after day. No other interaction between ‘teacher’ and students.

One day Ditto drops dead from a heart attack behind his newspaper. Still, throughout the day, the kids come and go, come and go, none never noticing that the man seated behind the newspaper is a corpse!

(And by the way, every school I ever worked in had a copier-hog pretty much like Ditto. Yeah, Teacher World in my experience was a lot like the world of M*A*S*H, character-wise.)

Anyway… I hope you enjoy this silly clip depicting a teachers’ lounge altercation (which I personally find much more realistic than you might be inclined to believe):

OK. First, let’s be honest.

(1) The movie’s old. Forty years old to be exact. So yeah, it’s dated.

(2) Dated, and a little cheesy, but not cheap. I mean, just look at the stellar cast:

Nick Nolte

JoBeth Williams

Judd Hirsch

Ralph Macchio

Richard Mulligan

William Schallert

Laura Dern

Crispin Glover

Morgan Freeman

(plus a host of wonderful, now-all-but-forgotten character actors

(3) And yes, this scene is silly. Not quite slapstick, but silly. Meant to be silly. The movie’s a comedy.

(4) But the movie’s a satirical comedy, a lampoon. And satires poke fun at situations that actually… are.

So if you are judging this scene as being totally unlikely, a scene that would-never, could-never–happen in such a place as a work room for professional educators… think again. Because in a moment, I am going to share with you a scene that I once personally witnessed, very similar to the one in this film.

Allow me to present my qualifications, my credentials, to even have an opinion on this:

I served 34 years in the trenches of schools (both public and private), and just like all other lifetime career educators, I’ve had the opportunity to witness a patchwork quilt of sometimes unbelievable ‘situations,’ so many in fact that had some gypsy fortune teller ever shown me in her crystal ball scenes of my teaching career future… who knows? Perhaps I would have remained the hapless gas pump jockey to this day.

But OK, here we go. Let’s take a quick look-around-peek (with the dimming flashlight of my memory) at my past, real-life Teachers ‘movie’:

Oodles of bomb-scares, of course. Wherein I sometimes, along with a squad of my equally untrained bomb-squad colleagues, helped the cops check out every locker in the building.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Breaking up tons of boys’ room fights and, more than once, getting slammed into a wall, so doing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Enduring a three-weeks-long scabies epidemic that took out three-quarters of the school population (including the teachers) throughout that time.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Getting a surprise day-off from school one mid-morning due to a ‘temperature inversion’ caused by the paper mill’s stench-bucket-smoke from the towering stack right next door, commingling with the dripping 95-degree humidity outside to form actual CLOUDS inside the building (I’m dead serious here), floaters right up there against the ceiling tiles, clouds that actually began drizzling a toxic “rain” down upon us, the hapless school population—

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Participating (yes, illegally) in a couple days of a sign-waving labor strike during our three-years-long contract negotiations.

Not actually a strike photo, just a news clipping of one of our many protests leading up to the strike. (BTW, I’m the menacing, moustachio’d dude in the jeans jacket, 3rd from the left)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Oh, and this one’s a riot: being ‘schooled’ by a (pretty-much “brain-dead”) Special Ed administrator during a mandatory faculty meeting that “It is an infraction, by law, for any member of the faculty to share the records of one of our students with any party outside that student’s family or school counselors.” Guess what. Within a couple of weeks of that presentation, that particular “administrator” (who couldn’t administer himself out of a wet paper bag) inadvertently did just that: he himself inadvertently sent one male student’s private records to the family of a totally unrelated female student! As you can imagine, the parents of said male student threw a fit, and threatened to sue the school.

But see, that’s only Chapter One of the saga. Because in the following school year, right after officially warning all of us teachers again of the legal importance of never giving out any student’s info to any other party, this man, this idiot… (wait for it) did it again! And not only did he do it again… he accidently sent that very same male student’s records to the very same female student’s family! AGAIN! Swear to God on a stack of Bibles! I have old teacher friends who will back me up on this. You can’t make this stuff up.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

At one point in time, in one particular school I taught at, anyone (teachers, students, cafeteria help, custodians, and even students) were allowed (for a while, anyway) to just drop by the main office and place any needed, public, school-related announcement into a designated box. Such announcements (i.e., “The Chess Club will meet tonight in room 222 at 6:00 this evening”; “Wrestling practice is canceled this evening”; “Would Billy Greenwood report to the office at this time”; etc.) would then be read daily, before and right after school, by the high school principal.

This practice came to an untimely end however after some wise-ass kids put the following ‘announcement’ into the box for four days in a row. “Mike Hunt must report to detention hall this evening. If Mike Hunt fails to do so, there will be consequences.” After two days of the principal’s booming voice reading “Would Mike Hunt please report to detention hall this evening!” the third day’s readings got a little cranky: “Would Mike Hunt please report to detention hall tonight! If you’ are MIKE HUNT, I personally guarantee you will regret failing to do as you’re told!”

The message, it turned out, was not repeated on day four. (1) No Mike Hunt was enrolled in the school at that time, and (2) the way “Mike Hunt” sounds if you say it fast… (Uhmmm… ok, sorry… yeah, I’ll let myself out…)

But this is a true story, and that’s when the practice of the open announcement box in the main office ceased forever.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Anyway, after 34 years in front of the chalk boards, I’ve garnered thousands of these never-a-dull-moment, “text-book -looney-bin” anecdotes (to pilfer a Stephen King quotation from his book, On Writing). I’m sure all career teachers have. But the capper of all cappers in my life was that year a certifiable, text-book looney-bin sociopath and career criminal conned his way into the headmaster’s position and took the school for an unforgettable ride.

He lasted almost the whole year, but not quite. And as a result of my calling him out and getting him fired, even long after he had disappeared into the ether, I received a couple of spine-chilling threats from him (that’s over an eight-year period). And as tempting as it is for me to launch into tell you that story, I can’t allow myself to do it. Neither you nor I have the time, since I when I’ve done so in the past, I’ve always become a veritable Rime of the Ancient Mariner storyteller once I get started on that one.

But it’s also a true story, and that man became my personal albatross.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

No, instead, I’ll conclude with the memory of another little account, one that got triggered in my mind by that film clip from Teachers… a dining room story.

Well, calling it a dining room is a gross exaggeration. What it was in reality was an oblong, boxcar-like box with a single door and no window. And it sat off to one side, against a wall like… something out of place, like an afterthought on the floor of the student cafeteria. The cafeteria itself was a fairly spacious hall with the usual kitchen-side, take-out windows where you’d pick up your trays, napkins, silverware, and the daily entree of your choice, and carry your loaded tray over to any of the circular tables surrounded by cafeteria chairs. But off on one side was that box. The faculty’s box.

I’m not sure what its measurements were, but it housed a long table inside, long enough to accommodate probably eight, maybe ten chairs to a side, meaning the room could seat a very crowded dozen and a half teachers at a time. Close quarters. Barely room enough to push your chair back against the wall behind you when you were finished and would be making your exit from the table.

Yes, this is where each mid-day, we of the faculty would come together to commune and break bread together (I’m tempted to say feed— the arrangement, such as it was, so much resembling a trough). Meanwhile, outside the box, a little sea of kids chattered away at their special, clique-designated tables.

Likewise, the faculty was comprised of its cliques as well, only in this setting, all cliques were sardined together around the same table. You had your jock clique (coaches and P.E. teachers); your smug intellectuals from the English wing clique; your politicos (the hawks and your doves, the hard-hats and your hippies); the newbies and the tenured; your misogynists and your pro-feminists; those who loved kids and those who obviously didn’t; and those who felt comfortable in their own skin joined right next to those who obviously did not.

All at one table.

Oh, and by the way… down the middle of the table, among the salt and pepper shakers and napkin holders, you also had the ashtrays because you also had the smoker and non-smoker factions. Which was an ongoing problem. Because back in the 70’s and earlier, the smokers had rights. The non-smokers? Not so much. Just the frickin’ way it was.

So if you were breaking bread at this table and the carcinogenic haze was tickling your throat and making you cough; if it was aggravating your asthma; hey, even if it was slowly killing you: just SUCK IT UP, BUTTERCUP. I think some rationalized it this way: I mean, what the hell? What difference does it make? We all live and work right under the paper mill smokestack anyway, so…

Yeah. I know.

But eventually that little controversial kettle of fish finally managed to get added to the faculty meeting agenda. And as a result of that meeting, after everyone who had something to say had aired her or his particular grievance, the issue was brought to a vote. And wow! The motion to ban smoking in the teachers’ dining area (if only DURING the actual lunch period) actually carried!

It really wasn’t so much though, was it. I mean, if you were already in there on your free period, (actually, we weren’t allowed to say “free period”— we were instructed to always say “planning period,” so it wouldn’t sound like you were sleazing off with nothing to do) you could smoke to your lung’s content right up to the first second of the ringing of the lunch period starting bell. So you know, obviously your smoke would still be right there, in the room, fresh as a daisy as the faculty and staff came filing in with their trays.

So no, it wasn’t much, but it was a start. Better than nothing.

Until that day…

A typical day, really. Conversations about… who knows what?…Richard Nixon, maybe; or who was getting stuck chaperoning the upcoming prom; or Jaws, the movie perhaps; or the long-lines-at-the-pumps gas shortage… whatever.

And then something happened.

We had this athletic coach, OK? He was seated a couple of chairs down from me. And what he did is suddenly pluck a pack of Marlboros out of his shirt pocket. Yeah, he did it just like he’d done it hundreds of times before in there. I guess something like that pretty much gets to become muscle memory after so long. You don’t even have to think about it. Maybe you probably don’t even realize you’re doing it, half the time. It’s a habit.

But two or three people noticed him do it, and somebody said, “Ooops.”

He stared back at her and said, “Ooops what?”

And she responded “Ooops, weren’t-you-at-the-last-faculty-meeting-oops?”

But by now he’d already tapped the ends of three filter tips out of the pack. “Ooops. I can’t remember if I was… or not.”

“Oh, you were there,” the man seated directly across the table from him said. “You were there.”

“So?” Suddenly all the side-conversations had stopped.

“So we took a vote.”

“Huh!”

“And we all voted that there’s no more smoking in here during lunch hour. While we’re eating.”

“Well, no. We didn’t all vote for it. For instance, I didn’t vote for it.”

“Yeah, well… the majority voted for it. And the majority rules. Maybe you haven’t heard, but this is a democracy.”

By now he had a Marlboro dangling from his lips. “So, uhh, exactly WHEN… did you, all in the majority, vote for this new rule to go… into effect?”

Somebody else said, “It automatically went into effect when the vote was tallied.”

“That right?” Coach said, but he wasn’t looking at the person who had just spoken. He was looking straight ahead at the guy seated across from him. The elderly gentleman.

“That’s right,” the gentleman said.

“Funny. I don’t remember anybody announcing that at the meeting.” A grin was starting to spread over Coach’s face, and he’d begun fishing for something in his pants pocket. It was pretty obvious he was fishing for his lighter.

“Didn’t hafta be announced,” said the elderly man (whom I shall henceforth refer to as Mr. Ellison.) “It was understood.”

The Zippo was out now. “What, so… if I didn’t understand, you’re calling me, what, stupid now?”

Somebody with a frown said, “Hey. Come on, Coach…” but failed to explain his point in words. I know I was feeling very uncomfortable. I’m betting most, if not all, of us were.

Coach was smiling, Ellison wasn’t. “You’re not stupid.”

“Well… thanks. For that.“

Damn. It felt like we were in some dumbass wild west movie all of a sudden. The poker game scene in the back corner of the saloon where one guy’s just told the other guy, ‘I’m sayin’… you cheated!’ And the trouble was, Coach really was stupid. And he lived inside this big, muscly body with a great big ego and a little boy-child’s brain. He was a bully. A might-makes-right bully.

A sudden metallic click! His Zippo, popped open now, had a little finger of flame burning above it.

Ellison spoke like some steely-eyed Marshall warning the hot-headed gambler he’d better leave his Colt revolver right there where it was, in its holster. “You’re not gonna light that cigarette, in here.”

“Oooh! I’m not? Why? Oh no! If I do, you gonna run and tell on me?”

A female voice further up the table snapped, “Jesus Christ! Hey, little boys, no fighting on the playground, OK? For cryin’out loud, would you listen to yourselves?! Do you have any idea how silly you sound?”

But Coach went right on. “Hey, who made you my old man all of a sudden?”

Somebody said, “Aw jeez!“

“I said,… Who made you my old man?” And he poked the tip of his Marlboro into the flame. Smoke arose.

After thinking for a moment, Ellison began, “Truth be known, I bet if your father was here, he’d wipe that shitty……” but stopped when he saw the wiggily smoke ring expelled from Coach’s pursed lips traveling across the table toward him.

“You were saying…?”

With a brush of his hand, Ellison waved away the smoke ring as if a fly. “I was about to say… if truth be known, and I was your… daddy…”

Coach tensed at the word.

“… I’d be slapping your punk face six days from Sunday again, wouldn’t I… sonny boy? Now here, stub that cigarette out,” he added, sliding an ash tray sliding over across the table.

“Hey, I know what. How ‘bout I stub this butt right in that ugly kike face of yours?!”

BAM! The back of Ellison’s chair whacked the wall behind him as he struggled to rise to his feet! “OK! Now you’ve done it!”

BAM! Coach’s chair! “Not YET I haven’t!”

Amid tipped-over sodas and shouts of “GUYS!” “CHRIST ALMIGHTY!” “WHAT THE FUCK!” “STOP IT!” and “IDIOTS!” Ellison, caught up in what looked like a wild paroxysm of a Saint Vitus’ dance, was tearing at his sport jacket, futilely trying to rip the damn thing off his shoulders while Coach had already crawled a quarter of the way across the tabletop, only thing holding him back being the grip somebody’d managed to get on the back of his belt!

It was pandemonium! It was a ruckus! It was a…

ZOO!

And when the first teacher to bail reached the door yanked it open, (surprise!) two horrified boys on their hands and knees (having had their ears glued to the doorjamb all the while) toppled inside and pretty much had to be stepped over.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So yeah, I don’t find my Teachers clip to be that unrealistic, although it was a little over-dramatically done. And secondly, I do think that our needy little inner child (I suspect I’m talking about the ID here) remains with us all of our lives, hiding out inside us, right behind that Look-at-me-I’m- an-adult façade we project before ourselves like some medieval shield. And when things get too stressful in our lives, it steps out of the closet and, yes, look out, here it comes!

I guess I’m sounding a little… Lord of the Flies, huh.

So anyway…

When I first decided to focus on my memory of that violent little lunchtime incident for this post (the fight over smoking in the teacher’s “dining room” box), a film clip from another movie-favorite of mine kept nagging at me, wanting in on this discussion. I thought about letting it and finally, yeah, I’ve caved.

The film is of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. And I call the scene, the I Ain’t No Little Kid, Nurse Ratched! scene. And yes, I believe it provides a suitable little capstone for the topic at hand…

Thanks for reading, by the way.

TAGLINE: If he’s crazy, what does that make you?

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RUMFORD ROSWELL?? PART II

**ME ACTUALLY IN ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO IN SEPTEMBER, 2009**

Back in the 1970s, hardly anyone would dare admit to having seen a UFO, lest they’d be ostracized as a “nut case” and lose the respect of their peers, friends, and even family. This was especially true of airline pilots, who would likely be grounded first, and then secondly lose their cherished careers. It really happened.

This little clip from Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind dramatically illustrates that professional dilemma. Today, in 2024, airline authorities have eased up on their restrictions, and pilots are generally allowed to make their reports without fear.

Click and enjoy…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Of course, there are those who’d like nothing better than to have a close encounter of the extraterrestrial kind. For instance, here’s a ‘friendly’ old geezer, also from the Close Encounters film. Apparently when word got out that his city was getting inundated with UFO sightings, he decided to start hanging out most nights in a reported UFO hotspot, high up on a hill overlooking the cityscape. And he wasn’t alone for long…

***EARTH’S SELF-APPOINTED FRIENDLY AMBASSADORTO THE ETs***

FIRST, A RECAP OF PART I’s CONCLUSION:

(Jack Rogers’s speaking): “I mean, I didn’t drive all the way out here just to be lied to. OK? So let’s have it. What was it I saw last night?! What’s going on here?”

Silence.

“Well…? I want an answer.”

The boy looked up at him with imploring eyes, and then his gaze dropped back down to the toes of his shoes again. In the saddest, softest little voice you could ever imagine, he confessed.

“Uhmmm… we’re not allowed to talk about it…”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

PART II

“You’re not ALLOWED to…?! What the…?! Whatta you mean you’re not allowed to talk about it? Who’s not allowing it, for cryin’ out loud?!”

Silence. Then a mousey “… my dad.”

“Oh yeah? And why would he not allow you to talk about it…?”

“’Cause… he don’ wanna get in trouble.”

“Oh, really!?”

So this is where I butted in. “Son? Believe me. We’re not here to get anybody in trouble. Not your dad, not you, or anyone else, I swear. We’re only here because well, my… friend here saw something in the sky last night, OK? And see, it made him really really... curious, you know? And it’s been bugging him all day. So all we’re here for is to try to find… an answer. Just, you know, only the knowledge about what it was, nothing else. I promise. Just… knowing.”

“And I don’t want to get me in trouble, either, like him getting mad at me ‘cause I told.”

“OK OK, I get that. We get that. And no, of course not. That’s the exact last thing in the world we want, too.”

“‘Cause Dad’s a Forest Ranger.”

“Oh… Ah.” That was a lot to take in. “Hmmm. I see. OK then. So here’s what’s let’s do. You tell us what it was my friend saw up there in the air last night, and poof! we’ll disappear, just like that. We’ll get right out of your hair. He and I, we’ll get in the Jeep right how and go right back to our homes. It’s almost past our bedtimes anyway. OK? Nobody gets in trouble or anything. How’s that?”

“Uhmmm, I dunno.”

“Please, son?”

“… Oh, OK. I guess.”

“Aw, great. So. Just what was this curious thing?”

“Well, Dad makes’em.”

The two of us let that sink in for a moment. “So. You say he makes… them, eh? So… he’s made more than one, I take it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“OK. That’s cool. Yeah. And your dad. He does this… why?”

The boy thinks for a moment and says, all matter-of-fact, “For fun.”

“Wow. Yeah. I can see that would be kinda fun. Kinda a hobby, I guess. You know what? I think your dad and I maybe have a lot in common.”

“OK.”

“And what does he call them? I mean, does he have a name for these things?”

“Oh, just… UFOs.”

“Just UFO’s. And so, he does this because… well, I know you said for fun but, if I may ask, exactly where’s the fun in that, mostly, d’you think?”

“Well. There’s no such thing as UFOs. Not really. But Dad says a lot of people around here actually believe there are. Which is silly. And so he makes’em, and flies’em at night. So that the next day or two, somebody’ll probably call him on the phone to report seeing a flying saucer, because he’s a Ranger.. But he’s the guy who made it. And so he’ll says stuff like, Oh my! That’s scary! Tell ya what. I’ll get right on it. I’ll keep my eyes peeled on my night patrol. Stuff like that. And when he hangs up the phone, boy does he ever laugh and laugh. And he’s got a very funny laugh, too. It always makes Mum and me laugh right along too.”

“Wow. Sounds like your dad’s a funny guy. One good ol’ boy fun-loving guy, too.”

“Oh he is, he is! He says it gives’em a little… spice in their life. That’s the way he says it.”

“Well yeah. All he’s doing is just giving them something to think about. Just making life a little more interesting for’em, I’d say.”

“Yup.”

“Hey, you know what that reminds me of?”

“Uhmmm, no. What?”

“Halloween. You know how much fun Halloween is. The one day of the year everybody’s lovin’ the fun of being spooked and freaked out? Well, sounds to me all he’s doing’s just spreading Halloween fun around, off and on, other times in the year. And good for him, I say. There’s no harm in that.”

“Uh huh.”

“I mean, they might not be getting actual little kids all dressed up in scary costumes knockin’ on their doors, calling out, Trick or Treat. But what they do get, after they see one of your dad’s ‘UFOs’ go by overhead, is something that gives’em that same spooky fun, right? For a few days they’ll be peering out their windows at night, a little spooked and hopin’ they don’t come face-to-face with a bunch of little green men peering right back at’im, right?”

“Hah! Little green men! Yeah. That’s funny, ’cause that’s exactly what Dad calls’em too. The little green men!”

“Your dad sounds like a very likable guy. A lot like myself. But OK, you know what?”

“Nope.”

“I just want to say thank-you very much for telling us what it was my buddy here saw last night, to put his mind at ease.”

“OK.”

“And whatta you, Jackie ol’ boy, have to say to our little friend here?”

“What? Oh! Yeah, thank you very much, son.”

“You’re welcome, Jackie.”

“Thanks to you, kid, Ol’ Jackie here will be able to get some much-needed peaceful sleep tonight.”

“OK.”

“Now, one more last question before we go. OK?”

“Uhmmm, I guess…”

“Your dad. How exactly does he make these UFOs anyway. Only asking because, being sorta like your dad, I’m thinking I might like to make one or two of these myself, you know?”

“With straws!”

“Straws? Ummm, whattaya mean, straws?”

“Drinking straws. Plus his plastic bags. And a candle.”

“Drinking straws? You mean like, plastic drinking straws? Really?”

“Yep. We got a whole box of them.”

“Oh. OK. So that’s what he uses to make them. But, like, how does he… you know, put’em all together?”

“Oh sure. He sticks the straws together, kinda like Tinker Toys. And next, he starts by building… well, what he calls ‘a cage’ with’em. It’s kinda like when we was puttin’ that box kite together we built last year.”

“Oh yeah. A box kite. Sure. That’d sorta explain why it might have that top-of-a-tower look about it. So, he’s using the straws he sticks together instead of, like, your kite’s… long, wooden sticks?”

“Yeah. ‘Cause they don’t weigh nothin’. Cause it’s gotta be like… light, you know? And then he bends the bottoms of the straws over into the middle. And tapes them all up with the candle, all together. Yuh, right in the middle.”

“Ah. The candle. Heat supply! And a.k.a., the flickering light, yes!”

“’Course, the last thing: he pulls the bag down over it.”

“Uhmmm… what kind of bag does he use, by the way.?”

“The bags his uniform comes in.”

“You mean… when he buys his uniforms, they come in a bag?”

“No. The plastic bag when it comes back from the cleaners. And that’s only his dress uniform. Mom washes all his regular uniforms.”

“Oh. I get it. You’re talking plastic dry cleaner bags. Right! They have no weight whatsoever.”

“Yup. That’s why.”

“OK, little man. I can’t tell you enough how helpful you’ve been. And I really apologize that we probably made you feel a little nervous at first, a coupla big adult guys like us just pulling up into your driveway and banging on the door like we did. Well… like he did,” I say, frowning at Jack. “But this whole evening’s been very… educational. For the both of us. But…

“Oh well… it’s getting late, isn’t it. So, time to say adios, I guess. But I gotta tell ya son, and we both mean this: you… are one good man, Charlie Brown.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A couple of minutes later we were tooling back down those pitch-dark, spooky, Deliverance roads, back toward our safe little-green men-free lives…

But: an ‘interesting’ evening was had by all.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now, I don’t know if any of you’ve gathered this from many of my previous posts, but… I suspect there’s probably something… a little weird (?) about me here. Well OK, a lot of things. I mean, what better a ‘for instance’ than this? Go figure:

(A) I’d serendipitously been treated to a nice, late-evening, Unsolved Cosmic Mystery Ride in a Jeep— great entertainment;

(B) the mystery had been solved— Robert Stack, eat your heart out;

and (D) Jack Rogers could now sleep soundly at night knowing that his world (and ours) was not under at least an immediate threat of an extraterrestrial invasion.

Quite a day, right? So, wouldn’t you think that would be enough? For anybody? Well surprise. It wasn’t. Not for me. Because I was one of those people for whom enough is never enough. Right. I guess you could say that maybe I… had a “problem?”

“(ahem) Hi. I’m Tom. And I’m a prankster…?”

Church basement Pranksters Anonymous Gathering responds (in unison): “Hi, Tom! So. Go ahead. Talk to us about your problem.”

“OK. The first prank I remember pulling was the time I screwed the cover off a brand new, previously untouched jar of peanut butter, fresh from Ma’s grocery shopping. I was in fourth grade. You know how flawlessly smooth the peanut butter’s surface always is when you first get that cover off?

“Well guys, I don’t know what devil or demon must’ve whispered in my ear to get me to do this, but with the pointy end of a toothpick, I actually etched the following message into that smooth surface: “RAT POISON.”

Then not only did I screw the cap back on tight, but with a couple of Dad’s tools from his workroom, I managed to screw it on so tight that there would be no question whatsoever that the jar must’ve been tampered with before leaving the food processing plant.

“Hey, I don’t know why I did that. Bad genes, I suspect. Plus… I was only nine and I thought, you know, it’d be funny. And it was the 50s, right?

But oh, didn’t the family just go nuts over that one. Of course I obviously confessed to the crime before, you know, they called the police. Anyway, after the scalding scolding I got and everybody’d calmed back down, I realized I felt hungry. So I made myself a fluffernutter sandwich.

“No surprise: Harold and Maude has been one of my top ten favorite films ever since I first saw it.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

With all that in mind, you should know that I came away from that flyjing saucer episode with Jack with what people colloquially call “a bee in my bonnet.” I came away from that episode with sugar plums of straws and plastic bags and candles dancing in my head. And I was chomping at the bit.

So I began chatting up my colleagues as to whether or not they happened to have any dry cleaning bags in their closets that they could part with. Didn’t actually tell’em why. Just that it was a project I was working on. And then (duh!) I checked my own closet, and it turned out there were a couple in there “protecting” sport jackets I hadn’t worn or even seen for a decade or more.

So: dry cleaning bags: check!

And of course the drinking straws and a candle? No problem. Grocery store: check! and check!

Oh yeah. I was locked and loaded!

But here’s the thing. In those days I was always more of a dreamer than a doer. Plus as I’ve attested in previous posts, laziness was definitely another one of my character flaws back then. So, as fun as the idea seemed (you know, to simulate a War of the Worlds attack on the population of Rumford, Maine), time just kept on slipping by. (yawn) And slipping by…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But then eventually, it just so happened that Bruce (my kid brother, twelve years my junior) came to stay with us during a good part of the annual school summer vacation. Which put the onus on me to find something entertaining for us to do together.

One thing I came up with was taking him camping over night up in the woods in a place called Moody Mountain. I was in the Army National Guard at the time, so I raided the armory for the pup tent, canteens, and other supplies. That day or two remains in my memory as a fun, idyllic, little adventure.

That, plus having him stay at our house for an extended period of time gave me an opportunity to really bond with him. And I’m grateful to this day for that.

Anyway, later it dawned on me that Bruce would be a great partner in crime for my War of the World dream. I mean, he and I both were the biggest fans of the comical and popular late-night, radio-talk-show host, Jean Shepherd, who entertained his listening audiences throughout the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s with humorous and bizarre stories based on his own life.

(Now you may claim to not know who the heck Jean Shepherd was, but… I believe you do have a connection.

He’s the one who both wrote the story of that perennial favorite holiday movie, A Christmas Story, was based on, and performed the narrated voice-overs throughout the film. You know— that story of little Ralphie who nearly shot his eye out with his new Red Ryder BB gun. (Man, I can think of few fictional characters with whom I identify more than that kid.)

But I only mention this because Bruce and I were both inspired by one particular episode from his radio show, set back in his college dormitory days. A bunch of the frat boys supposedly decided to prank New York City with a Halloween UFO scare. Here was their recipe for chaos:

(1) First collect some of those black, Glad, 39-gallon lawn and leaf bags and then, with scissors, cut some of the bags up into long strips

(2) With a flat iron set on a not-too-hot setting, hot-iron the strips together to eventually form a hot-air balloon ‘envelope’

(3) Fashion the plastic ‘sheets’ together as a ‘balloon,’ so that the balloon you’re making has an approximate golf-ball-size hole at the top and a softball-size one at the base

(4) Then with aluminum foil, fashion a little, light-weight, open-topped ‘tray’

(5) Attach the ‘tray’ to the base of the hot-air balloon

(6) Inflate the balloon with hot air from a hair dryer

(7) Push each inflated balloon outside your 15^th-story dormitory room window and hold onto it

(8) Fill the tray with a generous measure of lighter fluid

(9) Ignite the lighter fluid, and let the balloon go!

Bombs Away!

Now Shepherd claimed that he and a bunch of other students (most likely drunken frat brothers) actually did this on one dark and windy Halloween night. Thus around the witching hour of midnight, several silent, evil-black ‘drones’ beset the city like a squadron of flying monkeys. And because it was a windy night, according to him the balloons were prone to swaying back and forth at times. And when this happened, some of the flaming lighter fluid sloshed out of the aluminum trays, dropping fiery driblets down toward the city below. Consequently, calls started coming into precinct headquarters from all over, with terrified citizens reporting dark UFOs shooting flaming death rays down upon the unprotected citizenry!

A silly story to be sure, and very likely 95% exaggeration, but inspirational nonetheless…

So anyway, Bruce and I went to work. We had the bags, straws, and candle. And if I remember correctly, we were planning to use one of those tiny little birthday candles because of its weightlessness. And English-teacher-me thinking, How hard could it be to recreate the thing Jack Rogers had witnessed that night up in the sky?

So down we went to work on our knees on my living room floor.

OK. I challenge you, dear reader— just try to build yourself a usable, five-foot-high, cage-like framework out of drinking straws sometime. I mean without going mad. Surprise— straws are not like is Tinker Toys! Each one was virtually refusing to allow itself to be inserted into its fellow to form a longer strut. And we were probably going to need five or six five-foot-long or longer struts to build said frame, down over which we would then slip the dry cleaner bag. And oh yeah, if you do ever manage that, then try to figure out a way to bend all the bottom straw-ends into the center and… connect them in such a way, with tape perhaps, that an upright birthday candle can be mounted firmly there!

I was no engineer. And we had no manual, only that kid’s list of the main ‘ingredients’ his dad used, along with that inspirational Shepherd broadcast to go on. And me? I was that frickin’ useless English teacher!

Great Idea #1: never ask an English teacher for practical help. Unless it’s for something like diagramming a frickin’ sentence.

By the time I was just about ready to scream and give up…

I actually gave up. Well, I rationalized it in my mind thinking, We do have the bag. Maybe we should take a little break, run a test first, and check it for leaks or something…

At least that sounded do-able. So I confiscated Phyllis’ hair drier from the bathroom, plugged it in, and began inflating the bag. And up she ballooned, like a breaching Moby Dick bumping and nudging its head against the ceiling! The hair drier heat was so hot I worried that the sheer, cobwebby plastic would go all Hindenburg on me at any second. So I was quick to switch the dryer back off and then I tied a string around the bottom of the bag.

Now here’s the thing. A Chinese lantern (which is what, in reality, this contraption is technically classified as), is supposed to look like this:

or this:

Our “thing,” however, looked discouragingly like this:

So I had to come to terms with the facts. With my skills (diagramming sentences, etc.) this big bag of hot air was never going to get its upright candle secured firmly in place and, therefore, would never be visible if flown at night.

Disheartened, I threw in the towel. “To hell with it. Let’s just take her outside and fly her now. As is.”

The only thing was though, the balloon was not floating in either a vertical, or a horizontal, posture. It looked wounded, tilting up there against the ceiling at a 45 degree diagonal, like the minute-hand of a clock pointed at the ‘2.’ I felt it would look less embarrassing (heaven knew why) if it were at least to launch from my house floating straight up and down. So we needed some ballast, and for that we ended up hanging a small plastic sandwich bag of coins from her. Turned out a quarter, dime, nickel, and a couple of pennies were just heavy enough to keep her floating upright. Yup. 42 cents.

We opened her up for one last infusion of hot, hair-dryer air; cinched her back up once again, at the base; and escorted her outside. It was a perfect sunny, blue-sky day outside.

As soon as we let her go, it became immediately obvious that she was practically invisible, being of such gossamer, see-through material, but up she rose, as upright as a chimney., a shimmery gleaming thing in the sun. It looked at first like she’d be piercing the stratosphere in no time, but she leveled off in a minute and then was being carried by the wind toward downtown Rumford.

Bruce and I trotted along beneath her. We could see her up there because we knew right where to look, but it was doubtful that anyone else would be likely to. She was spectacularly unnoticeable. And then she started moving faster, so we had to keep up with a spirited jog. Eventually we were crossing the big bridge that leads over the Androscoggin River and into the downtown business section of Rumford.

The bridge actually had a lot ot traffic on it, pedestrian and four-wheeled traffic (unlike in this picture).

So what did we do? Why, we hitched our wagon to a fast-paced group of five or so walkers and theatrically (shamefully theatrically) began looking up! Pointing up! And loudly and inanely asking each, other back and forth, “What in the heck is that thing up there, in the sky” “My goodness! Gee, I dunno! Never saw anything like that! How ‘bout you?” Et cetera…

But did anyone pay any attention to our not so well thought-out ‘dialogue?’ Did anyone else, besides us, even look to the sky for a single second in wonder? Catch even a frickin’ glimpse of our transparent, ridiculously invisible UFO?

Of course not. Not a one. They were all too wrapped up in their own, much more realistic and apparently more interesting, worlds and lively conversations to notice a couple of babbling crazies who didn’t seem to belong in that picture at all. Two guys who didn’t amount to much more than the shadowy flash of a transparent glitch in the matrix?

I mean… how rude!

So then we tried butterfly-netting the equally elusive attention of people passing by in the opposite direction, but it didn’t take long for us to realize that for some reason we we’d somehow become as transparent as that hot-air bag quickly dwindling in size as it continued its flight path following the river down below it.

No, it was just not in the cards for that day to be one wherein we were gonna get to garner even a minute of fame. It was a classic Wile E. Coyote failure.

So what could we do?

Well, all we ended up doing was leaning ourselves up against the concrete sidewalk guardrail to watch… what? Our Unidentified Flying Bag?

THE VERY TREES (LEFT) THAT RECEIVED THE “THING”
PLUS 42 CENTS

(Hmmm. Can something be said to be unidentified if absolutely no one ever saw it even? To you know, unidentify it?)

Anyway, we watched the deflating bag gradually banking to the left, heading for the taller shoreline trees. We watched it alight, like a faraway eagle, among the uppermost branches of one of the taller ones. And by squinting, we could actually make it out from time to time hanging up, way over there, especially when the breezes fluttered the bag because then it glinted in the sun.

What could you say but… oh well!

Except maybe “not with a bang but a whimper.”

Sometimes I imagine, hundreds of years from now, some extraterrestrial archeologist doing a dig along the sides of the mighty Androscoggin (who knows what its name might be then?) and becoming excited when they come across a tiny little pocket-lump of five ancient coins.

I hope they’ll still be in good shape.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As always, I invite you to leave a comment below…

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RUMFORD ROSWELL???

BUT FIRST, A BLAST FROM THE PAST TO SET THE TONE…

CLICK TO PLAY…

Mid-September, 1977, the Teachers’ Lounge…

Three or four of us were hunched over the far end of the lunch table. We’d been poring over the daily newspaper. They’d been checking out the local area high school football scores. Me, not so much. But anyway, after I folded the paper back into its original shape and arrangement, and laid it back down, front-page-up, I spotted that same news article that had caught my attention earlier, back at home during breakfast.

Me: “You guys see this one?”

One of Them: “What’s that?”

Me: “Steven Spielberg. Got a new flick coming out. Gotta say, I really like his stuff.”

One of Them: “Shark boy? What’s this one gonna be about? Killer whales?

Me: “UFOs.”

One of Them: “Well, that’s stupid.”

One of Them: Come on. Science Fiction? Really? That’s a ‘step down,” isn’t it?

Me: “Maybe. Maybe not. I mean, I just LOVED Duel. And… Sugarland Express was really good, too. The guy’s a movie maker’s movie maker.”

One of Them: “What’s it called?”

Me: “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

One of Them: “Well now, that’s a hell of a title. Wonder who came up with that clunker.”

Me: “It’s a technical Project Bluebook classification.”

One of Them: “Oh yeah? Well, of course… you’d know if anyone does.”

Me: “But here’s the thing.”

One of Them: “Yeah?”

Me: “Says that after this movie hits the screens, authorities’ phones all over will be ringing off the hook. UFO sightings’ll start going through the roof. A UFO movie like this, it says, could generate a lot of mass hysteria. You know, like everybody and his grandmother’ll probably start seeing ‘em and calling’em in.”

One of Them: “Hmm. No shit. Well, that’s all this country needs, isn’t it.”

One of Them: “Christ, I wouldn’t know who to call.”

Me: “Well, I mean, Jaws did that, sort of. I mean driving everybody nuts about sharks. Put the ol’ bullseye on’em, didn’t it. Put’em right on the ‘World’s Most Wanted List.’ Not Dead or Alive, either, just Dead. All sharks must die. They’re Public Enemy #1 right now, whereas before…”

One of Them: “Well… they are basically man-eaters, aren’t they.”

Me: “I know I’m in no hurry to go swimming in the ocean. But this article’s saying the movie’s basically about UFO abductions. So, maybe it’s Move Over Time for the sharks. Little green men are about to be climbing up the FBI’s Public Enemy List.”

One of Them: “Well. They sure as hell aren’t too likely to turn out like My Favorite Martian, are they.”

One of Them: “Christ, listen to yourself. They’re not likely to turn out to be anything, stupid.”

Me: Hell though, I still remember the nightmares from when I watched The Man from Planet X at age seven.”

One of Them: “I mean, little green men? That’s rubbish.”

One of Them: “You know, I wouldn’t mind seeing one of these UFOs your keep hearing about though. I just wouldn’t wanna meet the pilot and crew, is all.”

Me: Well, if quote-unquote “seeing” one of them does become all the rage, maybe you’ll see one too. Maybe we’ll all become victims of mass hysteria.”

One of Them: “Baloney!”

One of Them: “Whatever.”

Now although the timing couldn’t possibly have been more flukey, it was at this exact point of this discussion that the door to the lounge swung open and in strode math teacher, Jack Rogers. We each greeted him with our routine “Hi, Jack,” and “Mornin’, Jack!”

Jack, not saying Good morning back, marched straight over to our little group, not bothering to set his brief case down, take off his jacket, sit down, or anything. And he had the look of someone who hadn’t slept at all last night. He also had the look of a man on a mission because there he was, just standing there before us, kinda dazed-looking and staring down on all of us with the look of someone who’d just swallowed a June bug.

“Hey, guys,” he said, sounding like he was a little out of breath.

“So what’s up with you this morning,” someone asked.

“Jesus,” he said, shaking his head as if to clear away cobwebs. “Something happened last night.”

We waited. “O…kay?”

“AND…?”

“This is gonna sound weird, but… OK, here goes. So I was driving back from Portland last night, taking a shortcut over some back roads, when I noticed something in the sky, up and off to my left. A dim, flickering light.”

Right there, we all made eye-contact with each other. Deadpan eye-contact. But with raised eyebrows.

“And it was moving. Slowly. In the same direction as me. It was dark out, but I could still make out the tree lines off away on the horizon, and this… light… whatever it was, was above those. The thing was less than a quarter mile off to my left, and probably up, I dunno, maybe about 400 feet.”

“You telling us what we think you’re telling us?”

Jack nodded. “It’s like… it was like one of those UFOs you hear ab…”

We erupted in a thunderclap of raw, involuntary laughter!

Which was pretty unfortunate, as Jack looked like he’d just been bitch-slapped! His cheeks burned a feverish pink. He was hurt, and angry. And who could blame him? And I know I immediately felt pretty bad about it. I think we all did. But I mean, come on, what were the odds?“

{Just a couple of notes here: (1) “Jack” isn’t his real name of course, and (2) “Jack” hadn’t been diagnosed yet, but for quite some time he’d been exhibiting symptoms of sugar diabetes: a seemingly-forever constant thirst regardless of how much water he regularly consumed and (2) a very touchy disposition where he sometimes would lash out in anger at things that were irritating him.}

But before I could say, We’re so sorry, Jack, someone asked, “Did you by any chance read the paper this morning?”

“No! I didn’t as a matter of fact, OK?! I mean, after last night... Iyou know what? I wasn’t exactly in the mood!”

Oh yeah. He was really pissed.

“See, all I was in the mood for this morning… was to come in here and… try to… I dunno… screw it… try to talk to you guys! And…”

“Hey listen,” I said, “we are so, so sorry. We weren’t laughing at you. See, we…”

“Oh. Really? Had me fooled!”

“No, I swear! It’s just this article in the newspaper this morning. Here. Read it. You won’t belie…”

“Excuse me if maybe I don’t wanna read it. That OK with you?!”

“OK. That’s fair, Jack. But please. Just hear me out?”

I took his glaring silence as an OK. So I ran pell-mell through what the article had to say and asked him to try to imagine what the effect of his entrance, along with his so unfortunately coincidental… revelation, had had on us. “And I swear to God, Jack, if you had been in here… and in on this conversation and I, or any of us, had come walking in through that door and said exactly what you said… well… think about it. How would you have reacted?”

His glaring silence persisted. I got it. The sting of anybody getting targeted as the subject of a chorus of belly-laughs, like that one, would linger. “OK, but please, Jack. Just know that we really weren’t laughing at you. We were just… reacting to the un-frickin-believable coincidence of the whole thing. I mean, c’mon, what were the odds, right?”

He just said, “Hmmmm,” placed his briefcase down on the floor, hung up his coat, came back, and joined us at the table. “You guys can think what you want. But you weren’t there. And damn it, I know what I saw.”

“And I believe you. I’m sure we all do. People are seeing things like that all the time. Which is why they created Project Blue Book in the first place, to follow-up on the thousands of sightings. So please, I hope you can work on forgiving our unintentional… but still pretty rude and thoughtless reaction.”

Jack just nodded. But finally he said, “So, can I tell you about it then, or what?”

I said “Yes, of course!” and everybody chimed in on that sentiment. And somebody asked, “So what’d it look like?”

“Well, you see… that’s the thing. It wasn’t saucer-shaped. Or cigar-shaped either, like they usually say. This thing, well… it honestly looked like (and this is gonna sound weird, but it’s one of the things that makes this so perplexing for me…) like the top of a tower. Only floating.”

We were all duly puzzled. “Wait a minute. Like… whattaya mean, a tower?”

“I mean, you could see sort of a structure to it, even though the thing appeared kinda fuzzy for some reason. Sorta… shimmery. But I mean… so just try to imagine the top of a radio tower off in the distance, OK? Upright? Tapered at the top? Only this tower’s lower half was missing. And the thing was floating. It’s crazy I know.”

“Well, that is sort of hard to imagine”

“Well, not for me anymore. Hey, gimme that piece of paper over there. I’ll draw you a picture of it.” Jack plucked a pencil from off the lunch table and went to work. It didn’t take him long. And this is what he showed us:

The four of us pored over it. Someone said, “Shit, that don’t look like any normal ufo.”

“That’s what I was saying!”

And then, seemingly right out of the blue, the first bell was ringing and all of us had to haul ourselves out of our chairs, gather up our things, and head for our respective classrooms.

End of discussion.

But it had been an interesting morning, to say the least.

And I still felt bad for Jack.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

That Evening, 5:30-ish:

A cool autumn evening with the darkness threatening to settle in. We were seated around the dinner table, our family, partaking of the typical evening meal. Suddenly, a knock at the front door!

None of us was expecting anybody. “I’ll get it,” I said, rising from my chair and heading out through the living room.

I was totally surprised to find Jack standing on the other side of the screen door.

“Hey, Tom.”

“Jack. Hi. This is a surprise. C’mon in.” I stepped aside and he stepped into the entryway.

“Who is it?” Phyllis calls from the kitchen.

“Jack. Jack Rogers!”

“Oh.”

“What’s up, Jack?” I couldn’t help but notice that he was appearing somewhat antsy.

“You busy right now? Or having dinner? I don’t wanna interrupt your meal.”

“No problem. Just finishing up. Maybe three or four French fries left. Why? You wanna talk, I take it?”

“Yeah that, plus I wanted to know if you’d be willing to take a ride with me.”

“A ride? What, right now? Where to?”

“Look,” he shrugs, “First, I apologize for how upset I got this morning, OK? But it’s just… this whole thing’s driving me crazy, alright? I mean, still.”

“You don’t need to apologize. I…”

“But I know what I saw, OK!?”

“Sure. Look, I know you saw something… something unidentifiable. I don’t doubt that for a minute.”

“Well, if you’d’a been there, you’d sure as hell’ve seen something too, damnit! And then…”

“I’m sure I would have. Look, Jack, I believe you, OK? I have no doubt in my mind you saw something, alright? Something weird. But listen, if anyone needs to apologize… well, it’s me. And I do. Again. And sincerely. I’m honestly sorry we all laughed. It was just… a gut reaction to the bad timing of that whole damn thing. I’m serious. Look, if you’d been in our shoes, you’d see that.”

“Yeah. So you guys all said. And yeah, I do get that now.”

“I hope so. It was just a bad… one hell of an unfortunate coincidence. I mean, there we were reading that very article, talking about it and everything… and in you come…”

“Yeah. OK. Whatever. I get it.”

“It was like some slapstick scene right outta a sit-com, you know?”

“Yeah yeah yeah. So anyway… you got time to take a ride with me, or what? Right now? I just really need to go back there. And have a look. It’s driving me nuts!”

“Well, sure. OK. I’m in. But honestly? You gotta realize that whatever it was you saw is more than unlikely to still be there. Right?”

“I know. Yeah. But I still wanna go out there. And just take a look-see. I just feel I gotta go back and… I dunno what!”

“Got it.”

“And I really just don’t wanna go by myself. Because on the off-chance there is something to see out there tonight, I don’t wanna be the only one. I want a witness.”

“OK, Jack. I mean this sounds like an adventure. I’ll get my jacket.”

As I lifted my jacket off the hook in the rear hallway, I stuck my head around the corner into the kitchen to say goodbye to Phyllis. “Remember I told you this morning, Jack told us he’d seen a ufo last night? Well… I’m going for a ride with him to check out the area. And who knows, maybe I’ll be abducted. Probably be back in an hour or so…”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It seriously did feel adventure-like to me though, cruising on a UFO quest through downtown Rumford in Jack’s Jeep with the doors removed and the cool, rushing air breezing all through the cab! There was something wild and crazy about it. And right up my alley.

Then the town limits were behind us and we were tooling out into the woods on back roads growing spookily darker by the mile, what with the leafy branches from both sides of the road entwining themselves together and forming a canopy of even greater darkness over our heads.

But it was invigorating to be outside. Certainly better than watching the 6:00 news on the living room sofa.

Jack was detouring circuitously around, so that we’d be traveling down the road in the same direction he’d been traveling the previous night. “I know we’re not gonna see anything,” he bemoaned. “But I’ve just gotta go back there and be sure. I just can’t stop thinking about it. All the time.”

“Yeah. I get it. But it would be amazing, really too much to ask, to be treated to the same sighting two days and a row. Too good to be true, most likely. But I swear on a stack of Bibles, Jack, I totally believe you. Actually, I just wish I’d gotten to see it.

The whole thought of it felt pretty exciting, in a goose-bumpy sort of way.”

And soon we were rolling down the road in the exact area where he’d first noticed the thing in the sky. There were acres of flat fields of grasses on either side, checkered with bales of hay lying in loose rows.

“Yeah see, it was right up over there,” he told me, with an index finger pointing at the horizon off on one side of the road. “Just a damn, dim, flickering thing, crawling right along up there low in the sky in the same direction as me.

And see, that’s the thing too: what you so often hear about UFOs is that they’re usually bright, not dim. And strobing, not… just barely flickering. But it was weird just the same.”

We rode along for a minute or two in silence. You could now see some of the stars coming out, glinting overhead. But nothing other-worldly. Finally, I asked him, “So whattaya wanna do now? Throw in the towel, or wait awhile longer?”

“Not ready to throw in the towel just yet, even though I’m pretty much positive we’re never gonna see what I wanna see. It’s just that about a mile up ahead is the turn-off, where I had to go right to head home and the thing… just continuing heading off and away in a straight line. Last I saw of it anyway.”

It was a crossroads where Jack finally let us roll to a slow stop. “Yeah. This is it. Where I had to turn off.”

“Whoa. You forgot to tell me there was a graveyard right here.” There actually was.

“Honestly, I never even noticed it myself. It was dark, and I was keeping my eyes glued to the sky.”

We climbed out of the Jeep, walked around to the front of it, and leisurely leaned our butts up against the grille and the front of the hood. The stars were pretty and bright. But the dim UFO was nowhere to be seen. “The graveyard’s kinda spooky though.”

“Hey. Sorry I dragged you all the way out here.”

“Not at all. It’s all good. I enjoyed the ride and the fresh air. So much more exhilarating than scoring the stack of essays I brought home with me this afternoon.”

“I just wish I knew something… anything I could do to get this… anxiety out of my head!”

“Well, I dunno if, or how, it might help, but see that big barn over there’s some guy over there leaning in under the hood of his pick-up. Working on his truck’s engine. We could just head over there and ask him if he saw anything last night. Worth a shot.”

That gave Jack a little boost. “Good idea. Let’s do that.”

A minute later we rolled up into the guy’s driveway and climbed out. Right away the guy looked up and started giving us the hairy eyeball. I didn’t blame him. Two guys pull up in my driveway that time of night way out in the willy-wags, I’d have felt very wary myself. Jack called out a friendly “Hello!”

I noticed in the light hanging above him that the guy picked up what looked like a foot-and-a-half long wrench. He certainly didn’t look too happy to see us. “Whatta you two want?”

“Sorry to bother you,” Jack said, “Just have a question. See, I was driving down this road here last night, ust about this time actually, and I happened to notice a… well, a dim, flickering light in the sky right up about there,” he said, pointing. “No idea what the darn thing was, but it was moving at a pretty good clip. It’s been driving me crazy ever since trying to figure out what it might have been though.”

The guy just stood there staring at us, stock-still by the open hood of the truck, silent, waiting. For more of the story maybe? Jack went on.

“So I was just wondering. If you saw anything like that. Last night? Or any night, for that matter.”

The guy didn’t seem to like that question. “That, Mister,” he said, “is none of my business!”

I felt Jack’s body stiffen, saw his face flash to anger! This morning he’d suffered the indignity of being laughed at by his peers in the faculty lounge. And his day apparently hadn’t been going so well since then.

“What did you just say to me?”!

Oh great— those were fighting words.

“I think you heard me,” the man snapped back.

For a second, I don’t know why, but I felt sure Jack was going to try to jump the guy. The guy with the big steel wrench. In my mind I could imagine hearing a couple of duelling banjos starting to pick out “Yankee Doodle.”

“Take it easy, Jackie. Please. And… time to go., right? Let’s just get outta here…”

“Hey, you! All I did was ask you a simple, friendly question. A simple yes, or no question! And You? You…”

“Jackie! Come on!” I urged. “Let’s go!”

“OK,” said the Man with the Wrench. “Let me point you in the direction of somebody you should be asking that question! All right? Now, you see that white farmhouse right down that road there?” He nodded toward it, over his shoulder. “Next one down? They’re the ones you need to ask! Not me or anybody else. Because. As. I. Said. It’s none of my business.”

“So… let’s go. Let’s go do what the man said, OK Jackie?”

“Jesus!” Jack growled. But he did back away and, thank God, slammed himself back into the Jeep.

But… I was wondering, what in the hell is going on here? What were we getting ourselves into? And more than that even, Did I really know anything at all about Jack? “You know…” I told him as we went barreling down the little dirt road spitting rocks out from under the tires toward the white farmstead, “we really don’t have to go to this place, though, do we?”

I never got an answer.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In no time, we had mounted the little front porch of the main house, and Jack was banging his fist on the front door. He’d begun with a knock, but since we could see some of the windows were blazing with light while no one was deigning to answer the door, he’d started banging on it.

After a while, the door cracked open a little. A crack no more than five inches wide. And peeking out through the crack was a nervous little boy’s face. A boy maybe four feet tall, plus or minus.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Hi,” Jack replied. “Could I speak with one, or both, of your parents please?”

The door opened to about a foot wide now. Swallowing noticeably, the boy said, “Uhhmm, they’re not home right now.”

“Oh. OK then, I guess I’ll hafta talk to you. So anyway… last night I was driving down the road back there and I saw something up in the sky. I guess I’ll hafta call it a unidentified flying object since I sure as hell couldn’t identify whatever the hell it was. You ever see one of those around here, up in the air at night?”

“No sir. Never.”

“It was giving off a flickering light and it was moving, traveling, right in the same direction as me… and it’s been driving me crazy ever since because… all I wanna know is what the hell it was. OK? Because it was disturbing, you know? And then, on top of that, this guy and me here? We just stopped up the road at your not-too-friendly neighbors’ place and asked him the same question. And you know what? He got all pissed off and said if I wanted to know what it was, I should come over here and ask you folks. So. OK. Here I am. And I’m asking. What exactly was it I saw last night, Huh?”

It took a moment before the boy, looking down at his toes, pretty much whispered a meek, “I don’t know.”

Once again I sensed Jack doing a double-take. “Well, I’m sorry, kid. But I think you do know. And I can’t imagine why you would, but I think you’re lying to me. Because that guy back there, your Mister Greenjeans from hell? Hesaid you people would have the answer!”

“Jackie, would you please take it easy? You’re scaring the kid. Cmon. Let’s go home.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be sounding so scary, kid, if you’d just own up to whatever this is, all right? I mean I didn’t drive all the way out here just to be lied to. OK? So let’s have it. What was it I saw last night?! What’s going on here?”

Silence.

“Well? I want an answer.”

The boy looked at him with imploring eyes, and then his gaze dropped back down to the toes of his shoes again. And then, in the saddest, softest little voice you could ever imagine, confessed.

“Uhmmm… we’re not allowed to talk about it…”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You’ve just finished reading my true story, “Rumford Roswell Part I.” Part II will be following close on the heels of this one. Watch for it to find out about The Aftermath of Part I.

In the meantime, below is a little smile for you in the form of a short little YouTube video. Enjoy.

Please feel free to leave me a comment, below, if the spirit moves you.

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A CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE, 1963

(A Little Out of-Season “Valentine’s Day Card” to… Ourselves, After Passing the 58th-Year-Anniversary Mark on July 31st, 2024)

What you’re looking at here is a clipping from our local weekly newspaper, The Piscataquis Observer (‘Piscataquis’ being the county of which my hometown of Dover-Foxcroft is the County Seat). The photograph here appeared either in early December, 1963 or December of the following year. It doesn’t matter which. The picture is of one big, fat snowman.

It had snowed throughout that day and evening, necessitating Foxcroft Academy to declare a snow day (which had pumped up the entire student body into an electrified state of positive energy). It had been a day of shoveling out walks and driveways, shouldering errant cars back onto roadways, sledding and tobogganing, building snow forts, and battling snowball-fight battles.

Sometime though, very late at night or in the early morning however, this snowman appeared— standing like some spooky traffic-cop-god manning the empty center of Monument Square. The snowing had stopped falling around 9:00 pm. The temperature had risen to about 40 comfortable Fahrenheit degrees, and the clouds above had swept themselves aside to reveal the black velvet, diamond-studded firmament overhead. The air that night was refreshing and sweet to the lungs. The world was a winter wonderland cliché. The town, silenced down and virtually emptied out by midnight, had become our personal playground. The snow which crunched under the soles of our boots was perfect snowman-snow.

Alone together in that perfect night, Phyllis and I began rolling our first snowball into the huge, legless hips of our Frosty the Snowman. And boy, it proved nearly impossible to upheave that second, even larger torso into place, but… love conquers all, doesn’t it.

Words can’t do justice to how happy we were, how amazingly content I was for a change. We were head-over-heels in love with love and with each other. Everything was perfect in my life! I mean, I actually had a girlfriend! A going-steady girlfriend! A high school sweetheart, and man oh man, was she ever sweet! We were going to movies. We were dancing at the Saturday night Rec Center. We were building snowmen.

I had a girlfriend who was a soda-jerk (I still hate that term) at Lanpher’s Rexall lunch counter who would personally wait on me (and maybe give me an extra ice cream scoop in my ice cream soda once in a while, if and when nobody was looking). And hell, I actually even liked school those days (mostly of course because she was always there). I mean, I had no idea what I ‘wanted to be when I grew up,’ but hey, I had blind faith that all would work out just great. And that Phyllis would be my future.

I was, and still am, a hopeless romantic.

So anyway— the snowman.

Building that snowman is a cherished memory for Phyllis and I. Despite the fact that when the photo was featured that Thursday in The Piscataquis Observer, the caption below it insultingly read, “Four students constructed this huge snowman in Monument Square.” I mean, come on! What four students!? There were no four students! What kind of low-lifes will just come along and, being total losers, find a museum-worthy work of art, and claim, “Yeah. We did that! That’s our snowman”? Damn. If they’d listed the names of those scumbag art thieves, I would have placed a big burning paper bag of dog-poop on their doorsteps at night, rung their doorbells, and run off to hide and watch those losers dirty their soles trying to stomp the fire out, heh heh!

But anyway… we know the truth.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ours was an odd relationship though, for the first year or so.

For one thing, Phyllis was extremely shy and demure. A really old-fashion girl that way. (Oh yeah, we laugh about this today. Those who know her now would have a hard time picturing her as some 1860’s cotton-plantation-type Southern belle.)

During our hour-long phone calls, I’d end up doing all the talking and she’d be doing the ‘very-interested’-listening-thing, basically. Oh, I’d get the occasional little titter and monosyllable back… even a complete sentence now and then. But I’d know she was there, because I could hear her shy and demure breathing on the other end. And even though I‘d pretty much become the Penn to her Teller, that was good enough for me. Great even (because hey, I had a real girlfriend at last, you know?)

Another odd thing is that she would never let me take her picture with my little Kodak Brownie^©. In fact she didn’t want anyone taking her photo. Whenever I or anyone else pointed a camera in her direction, she’d either turn totally around or cover her face with her hands. Scoring a good snapshot of Phyllis became a challenging sport. You’d think she was in the Witness Protection Program. Either that or the movie star being hounded by the paparazzi (which in her life was all of us toting our cameras).

“**Do NOT click the shutter on that camera!**“

I remember her stepdad Elden, a wonderful man, giving her some sensible advice on my behalf. Something like, “Phyllis. Wouldn’t it be better for you if you did let him take your picture? After you’d had the opportunity to prepare yourself and look your best, rather than leaving him to run around showing all his friends and family the somewhat odd pictures he’s getting now?”

But no… she wasn’t ready to heed that that advice. Thank goodness for school yearbook photos.

“What did I just TELL you about *NOT* clicking that *SHUTTER!!!*“

She apparently had no idea how beautiful everybody else saw her as. I mean, I had this moment in the hallways of the Academy where a barely-known-to-me-farm boy came up to me between classes and demanded, “You the guy going steady with Phyllis Raymond?”

Not knowing if I was about to get into a fight or something, I said, “Yeah. Why?”

And he looked at me with the most hangdog look you could imagine and said, “Do you know how goddamn LUCKY you are?!” He said it like an accusation. But no, more an unhappy surrender. “’Cause I sure hope the hell you do!”

Apparently, he’d had his hopeful sites on my new steady for some time.

“Yeah,” I told him, “I do know. And no, I can’t believe how lucky I am.”

And honestly, with my track record and loose-cannon self-esteem, I was still bewildered about how the hell I’d ended up with one of the elite majorettes.

Well, other than my sparkling personality and my extremely handsome looks, I guess the fact that I was always hanging around with the popular Mallett Brothers and had taken her out on that Johnny Cash concert date hadn’t hurt matters any.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Things We Do for Love

So after we’d got a few weeks of dating under our belts, I started hanging around out by the track after school, reason being: I loved watching Phyllis during her majorette practices. She was amazing. All of the majorettes were.

They actually did this one routine where they honestly tossed twirling, flaming batons way up over their heads and then caught them, all in sync, on their way back down. That blew my mind. I don’t know what they had on either end of their batons, but the flames sure looked dangerous. I really worried about Phyllis getting herseld a bad burn.

So anyway there I was, out there one afternoon watching them practice, when I was approached by John Glover, the Track coach whose team was also working out on the track and field. “You can’t be hanging around out here,” he told me.

“Why not?” I asked. “I don’t see I’m getting in anybody’s way or anything.”

“Because this is practice time. Only practitioners are welcomed. And since you’re neither a majorette nor a track star…”

“OH, come on. Really?”

“Really. Now on the other hand, I’m in need of a runner for the mile. If you care to apply, you can live out here and watch the girls over your shoulder all the time.”

Huh!

And so that was the year I went out for track.

I “ran” the mile. No runner, me– thus, the quotation marks. I was a jogger at best. And lazy, but I’ve already owned up to that in more than one of my previous blog posts. Plus, I found running really painful. And rather pointless, since the majorettes didn’t practice every afternoon like the track team did.

Now, obviously the difference between me and the other, much-more-motivated milers was how I “practiced.” Real milers would ready themselves for the next track meet by what seemed like running all the time. Three miles at a pop. But me? Hey, if I were readying myself for the mile run, I’d jog a mile. Maybe once, but certainly no more than twice a day. So…

When the starting gun fired on the day of my first track meet, we were off! It was a sweltering, hot day. Immediately I noticed one runner after another pulling past me like I was my old grandfather tooling down I-95 in his rattletrap pick-up at 40 miles per hour. And despite my better judgement, I (idiot me) began to succumb to the peer pressure. Stupidly, I accelerated. I passed someone. And then somebody else! And you know what? It was easy. Easy-peasey. I finished lap-one looking good!

At the end of lap-two, however, I wasn’t so pretty, quite honestly. But the track fans on the sidelines were cheering, goading me on. So I persevered.

But as I galumphed past them at the end of my third lap, my lungs were engulfed in flames!

Since there was no actual photograph of this event, I’ve stolen *this* appropriate one from the movie, *Platoon…*

And when I crossed the finish line, dead last… I simply collapsed down onto my rubbery knees, and puked my guts out.

Yeah. The things we do for love.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Going steady with Phyllis was a little tricky…

Like, one day after the final bell had rung at school, Phyl and I and the throng of all the happy-to-be-outta-there kids were marching en masse down the Academy driveway, headed for Lanpher’s Drug to hang out. I, the perfect gentleman, was of course carrying her textbooks (easy for me since I seldom brought any of my own home). (And backpacks hadn’t caught on back then.)

Now, whenever we were together, I had learned to make it a point to try to appear way more mature than my actual sixth-grade-level, Mad magazine mentality. Because I didn’t want to lose this one. So I always strove to never to let her catch me doing or saying things that would disappoint, or offend. Not an easy life for a guy like me.

So… while we were walking and talking quietly on our way down toward West Main Street’s sidewalk, way back behind us I overheard something that makes my teeth clench. Jim Harvey’s loud voice. “Boy, you guys shoulda heard what Tommy Lyford said to Ol’ Ma Gerrish in study hall this afternoon! That got a rise out of her!”

Damn it, Jim, I was thinking. Keep your mouth shut, why don’t ya! But of course he didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t. And I’ve long forgotten whatever it was I’d said earlier that day to win the chorus of cheap laughs I’d got from my equally immature study hall audience, but whatever it was, Phyllis went cold. She asked me politely for her books back, and we made the rest of the trip to her house in dead silence.

Me, the scolded dog.

And for some reason Phyllis also did not approve at all of gambling… back then (which is a laugh and a half now, when you consider all the casino man-hours she’s since put in, altruistically helping out struggling casinos wherever she finds them). But even though I was aware of her sentiments, personally I thought gambling was a way to look pretty cooland manly back in those high school days. So any so-called “gambling” I did, I always tried to keep on the down-low.

(Did I happen to mention I had a reputation for being *****-whipped back then?)

So anyway, I was working at the Esso Station one Saturday afternoon, along with the boss’s son Jerry, a wise-ass little punk three or so years younger than me.

Business had slowed down for a while, so he and I were just leaning our backs up against the tool bench in the back of the grease-monkey-area and shooting the bull. We’d opened up the bay doors for the fresher air and just to watch the ol’ traffic slide on by. Eventually another car pulled in for a fill-up. It was Jerry’s turn to get it. He was outside there for a couple, three minutes, and then he came hustling back in with an idea.

“Hey, let’s pitch some pennies. Whattaya say?”

I said sure. I always kept a modest cache of pennies in my pants pocket, since we partook of penny-pitching often, to kill time. Penny-pitching was like a game of micro-horseshoes. You’d each toss your penny up against a nearby wall, and the one whose penny landed the closest to the wall won that toss and got to keep both coins. I know it sounds brainless today because they were, after all, only pennies. However, pennies were worth a little more sixty years ago than they are today, right? I mean, for ten pennies you could buy a cup of coffee anywhere.

But my point with all this is… penny-pitching is a form of gambling. And guess what! While I was bending over, picking my two pennies up off the floor, I heard Jerry suddenly yell out, “Hey Phyllis! Look what Tommy’s doing! Pitching pennies with me!”

Immediately I realized what had just happened. The little bum had set me up (again). See, (A) while he was out there pumping gas, he’s spied Phyllis down the sidewalk, walking our way; (B) Jerry knew how Phyl felt about gambling; (C) Jerry also knew that I was one hopelessly *****-whipped little puppy; and (D) he’d set the whole damn thing up, the bum, just to watch me getting put back into the doghouse.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But hey, in spite of all my little “transgressions,” we remained passionately in love and getting more serious about staying with each other for all time, in spite of her being Catholic and me, Methodist. That was only a problem for my mom however, not us. Secretly we were living on the energy of the dream-promise of… marrying, despite how young and star-crossed we were.

For Christmas for instance, I ‘d got Phyllis a gift that was actually a ‘secret code’ hiding in plain sight: Namely, a cute little charm bracelet. I allowed Ma to check it out– especially emphasizing the cute little miniature majorette charm.

However, just before I got that bracelet wrapped up, I nefariously slipped in the contraband. I quickly attached it to the bracelet, and then took off, spiriting my special gift across town where I delightedly placed it under Phyllis’ Christmas tree.

(ta-dah!) The $2.99 “engagement-ring” charm, oh my!

Ma would be so pissed…

I’d also bought her one of those little pink and white music boxes with the tiny pirouetting ballet dancer positioned in front of its little mirror.

All well and good.

But gawd, even with that done Ma, with her Pentacostal upbringing, still managed to be a problem. When she asked me what else I was getting Phyl for Christmas, I told her, “A sweater.” But before I could get the next sentence out of my mouth, wherein I would have described the sweater I’d ordered, she threw a fit.

“A sweater?! Oh no, you’re not!”

“What? What’re you talking about? Why NOT?!”

“Because it’s not appropriate to be buying a young woman clothing, that’s why! Not at your age!”

“What the heck are you…? WHY can’t I buy Phyllis a…”

“You know very well why!”

“Excuse me!? No! I don’t think so! So… tell me, why don’tcha! Why?”

“Because men buy sweaters for women because… well for one reason: sweaters accentuate their breasts! That’s why!”

“Oh! My! God!”

But believe me, I got it then. Ma was still living in 1940’s World. I could just imagine the image that was going round and round in her brain. Phyllis as some steamy Mae West, and me as some sleazo!

“Ma! You’re… nuts! The sweater’s not going to accentuate… ANYTHING! It’s the same sweater I’m getting for mySELF! For cryin’ out loud! It’s not lingerie! It’s a cardigan! Come on! Gimme a break!” This was so embarrassing for me.

And by the way, even though we’d been going together for months, Phyllis and I hadn’t yet arrived at that level yet. I’d say we were both on “second base,” no further.

And hey, I loved it, being right where we were. Just being with her was all I cared about. It was like she was an angel. And quite honestly, I would have blushed if someone had spoken the word “breasts” aloud in our company.

Consider for example, one Saturday afternoon I walked Phyllis over to the Center Theatre to watch the movie West Side Story. I was loving it at first. It was so Romeo and Juliet. But then, in my opinion, something occurred near the end of the show that shocked, especially considering I was sitting right there shoulder-to-shoulder next to my angelic girlfriend.

When Anita (Rita Moreno) goes to Doc’s place to deliver a message to Tony (Richard Beymer), the Jets pretty much maul her, with the dance choreography depicting this as a very graphically simulated gang rape!

I was beside-myself-horrified! It was way too realistic for my tastes let alone, I believed, Phyl’s. I was silently haranguing myself with, Omigod! What kind of a movie have I brought my sweet, little girlfriend to?! What must Phyllis be thinking about this?! Or about ME… for bringing her to this… violent, sexual thing? Sinking down in my seat, I hardly had the guts to even look over at her. And after the movie, I walked her silently home, barely daring to speak. I pretty much figured I’d blown it.

Yes. I know. It seems silly today, doesn’t it. But that’s just how respectful, how virginal and sheltered some of us were back in the early 60’s. No, not everybody of course. But… me, for one. Today it seems ridiculous, but back then I was sweating bullets.

Turned out it hadn’t bothered her much at all. It was a non-issue. No biggie. Phew! But I was such a silly worry-wart. With so much growing up to do…

Yeah, the “crazy little thing called love” was so awkward for me, but upon looking back it was unbelievably wonderful and magic too. So yes, I love harkening back to my courtship days with my sweet girlfriend, Phyllis. So idyllic. So many great dates, beginning with that big one, our first real date: The Johnny Cash concert in Bangor, Maine.

You know, a lot of the time I couldn’t get to borrow my Uncle Archie’s car and had to use my dad’s bulky new Ford Econoline van with the Lyford’s TV Repair logo on the back, along with its large inventory of vacuum tubes, soldering irons, toolboxes, and the oscilloscope rattling around in the back. Not the most romantic ride.

But those were the wheels that charioted us to The Mallett Brothers and Johhny Cash.

Funny thing about the van. Dad once joked that he couldn’t drive up West Main Street without feeling the steering wheel suddenly lurch a little in his hands, tugging the van in the direction of Winter Street, the street on which Phyllis lived. It was like a horse that “knew the way” he told me, and was challenging his decision to go “off-trail.”

Oh, there are so many sweet memories I choose to wallow in every so often.

Like the day Phyl and I, with our picnic lunch, bicycled the whole five miles out to Sebec Lake’s Municipal Beach for a day in the sun, with swimming to cool off. Jeez, talk about being head over heels in love! That was such a magic day.

And then, when I graduated from the Academy in ’64, Ma wouldn’t let me go to the graduation parties everyone else was enjoying, lest I get drunk or something. Who knows. Instead (and this was such a dumb-dumb, embarrassing idea) she made me “celebrate” at home, setting up what she called a “party” for Phyllis and I and another couple. I was as mad as a wet hen, as they say, but it was hard to stay mad with pretty Phyllis right by my side, as this photo shows. I was happy that Ma was slowly coming around and accepting the inevitability of… Phyllis and me.

**The wild graduation “party.” And look how slim we both were!**

It wasn’t such a bad evening after all.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So… summing this all up, I guess I’m trying to say that our “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” goes down in the scrapbook of our minds as that heavenly, magic period of our early innocent courtship. A period of incredible happiness and hopefulness and truly halcyon days and nights. I was so blessed to have that, just as I am blessed today (us having made a good dent in our 59th year of marriage and our at least 61 years of being a couple) to live my life with the most incredible woman I can imagine. She still drives me crazy every day– Still Crazy After All These Years…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And now, to end on a lighter note: alas: here is/are a look at those lascivious, immodestly infamous sweater(s) during our courtship (And please, for decency’s sake, do not scroll down farther if you’re under 21 years of age):

The garment as imagined by my mom:

**Mae West wearing Ma’s imagined Christmas gift sweater…**

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And then, the reality…

**The actual shockingly UGLY Christmas sweaters**…

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THIS OLD GUITAR Part II: Hello. I’m Johnny Cash

The subject of my most recent post was my mother’s old acoustic, six-string, arch-top guitar that had been lying around and gathering dust in our house since Ma’s 1940s country and western band heydays. That, and even more so, the almost fairy tale effect it ended up having on a couple of young boys during the early ’60s. Because that’s when I toted it all the way out to the Mallett homestead in Sebec, where it fell into the hands and creative imaginations of high school sophomore Neil and his sixth-grade brother, David Mallett. And then…

Ta-DAH! The Mallett Brothers duo was born!

And over the next few years, I was so very fortunate to be in a position to witness, and often even accompany, those troubadours as they entertained their growing fans with their many live performances; not to mention often catching their records playing on the radio or watching their television broadcasts. It was amazing. And I don’t care who, or how many others, would claim the same thing, I knew that I was their greatest, and longest lasting, fan.

By that time, I’d started flirting with freshman Phyllis Raymond. And the heavens knew that I was wishing for something extra to boost my image in her eyes. And then (abra cadabra!) an unexpected divine gift just seemed to fall right into my lap!

I’d met Neil in the school lobby one morning as usual just before school started.

“You’re not gonna believe this!” he told me with an excited grin.

“What?“

“Johnny Cash is coming to the Bangor Auditorium!“

“Whoa! No shit!?” That was news! “I mean, Wow!”

“Not only that! Red and I are gonna be opening for him!” (‘Red’ being the family nickname for David. They all had nicknames, all the brothers. Bub, Mose, and believe it or not, Neil’s was ‘Ike.’)

“What!? You are not! NO WAY!” That was the most unbelievable thing I’d ever heard.

“We really are!”

“That’s just crazy! But… how!?“

“Well, it’s not gonna be just us. A bunch of local musicians have been invited to play too.”

“Wow!“

And sure enough, there it was. That very day, right there in the Bangor Daily News that morning!

At that time, I had no idea then who George Jones, June Carter, or the others were, nor did I care. All I could think of was… this was a potential Date Made in Heaven! I couldn’t wait to pass Phyllis my note reading, “How would you like me to take you to see Johnny Cash in person??? I can make that happen!”

Can you imagine how cocky I felt, writing that? How manful I was feeling? How… lucky? Me thinking the only dates Phyllis had ever been on were (A) meeting up with somebody at the Rec Center or (B) being walked to some crummy high school play with me. Because like me, she was living in Nowheres-ville. But… come on! I mean, Johnny Cash! She’d have to be looking at me now as somebody interesting, you know? Somebody with connections. Somebody so… upperclassman. Like, maybe she was thinking, Who knows? Maybe Tommy will be getting us tickets to see… ELVIS next??? You never knew.

It was cold and raining hammers and nails on the night of the concert (I just stole a Tom Waits’ phrase there– I didn’t make that up). I’d only had my license for a couple of weeks, and I’d logged practically zero hours of night-time driving, so my driving was a little iffy, but still I was pushing it as fast as the speed limit allowed because we’d gotten off to a late start. We rolled into the auditorium parking lot, threw open the car doors, and ran (holding hands) through the rain to the main entrance!

Inside, I quickly pushed my three hard-earned dollar bills in through the ticket-lady’s window (and I mean, can you believe only a buck-fifty for a major concert???!!!). Already we were catching the faraway-upstairs-strains of David and Neil belting out “Tear After Tear,” so we flew up three flights like a couple of Hollywood lovers while the final movie credits were rolling through the happy ending of some big romantic movie!

We popped out into a gigantic balcony packed with Johnny Cash fans and, sure enough, way down there on the main floor, far away and looking tiny, were David and Neil harmonizing, picking, strumming, and just sounding so damn good.

They got to perform more numbers than I ever would have expected they’d be allowed, considering the size of the line-up slated to play after them. Probably it was because the audience was so into them, judging by the wild applause and whistling. They had fans from all over the state of Maine by that time. I felt so proud of them. And so blessed to have them as my friends.

It was a night to remember for them of course, but also for me. A handful of incidents, some of which I saw for myself and some which I learned from the Malletts who witnessed them first-hand backstage, remain logged in the memory-album of my brain.

A cute, though insignificant, one occurred while Neil and David were performing on stage. I was keeping my eyes glued right on them, so I didn’t miss it. I think it was David, but it could have just as well been Neil (David, I think). (Whichever.) Both of them were down there singing, picking, and strumming their hearts out when (bink!) like a glitch in the matrix, someone’s guitar pick launched from the strings like a tiddlywink. Sparkling in the spotlight’s beam over the heads of the audience, it arced out and way like an indoor micro-meteor! It was cool to see the performers do their double double-take the instant that happened, but then soldier right on like the troopers they were.

But there were things that weren’t so cool that evening, too.

There were a lot of other locals lined up to play before The Man in Black. They started off with a yokel named (wait for it) Yodeling Slim Clark (A.K.A., “Maine’s Great Yodeler”). Three guesses as to what he mostly did. And there were other locals too. Hal Lone Pine. (Sure. Somehow I too tend to doubt that that was Hal’s actual last name.) Big Slim? What? Two Slims on the same card? Terri Lynn? Jeanne Ward? I didn’t know them, nor do I remember their performances at all. It was getting to be a long night.

It was Yodeling Slim Clark who led off after The Mallett Brothers. And in between the numbers, some emcee from somewhere out of sight down on that stage babbled on at us from time to time like some carnival barker: “Hey folks. It won’t be long now for the main event!” Or “You just wait! Johnny’s champin’ on the bit to get on out here on stage with his Ring of Fire!” But George Jones was up and the audience went wild. I didn’t know who the hell he was at the time, but it was easy to gather from all the roars and the applause that he was of The Grand Ol’ Oprey Big Time. As was June Carter. I’d never heard of her either.

They night was growing long, everybody waiting and longing for The Man in Black. And then something ominous happened. “You know what, Ladies and Gentlemen? We’ve had lots of requests to hear old Yodeling Slim Clark one more time! Come on out, Slim!” And you could feel it rippling through the audience. What? Yodeling Slim, again? Why?! Good Lord, wasn’t once enough?! And then, “Don’t you worry, folks! Johnny’s here! And he’s gettin’ ready to come out here in just a few, and give you the show of a life time! He’s here!“

I immediately looked around at the fans seated around me, who were also immediately looking around at all the fans seated around them. Puzzled frowns all around! I heard a whisper behind me that took the whisper right out of my mouth. “Damn! I don’t think Johnny’s HERE!” And suddenly that was the writing on the wall. For all of us. There was a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. The emcee didn’t say he wasn’t here, but something about the way he insisted that he was here knocked the wind right out of your sails, I can tell you that. And then… damned if we weren’t listening to old Yodeling Slim all over again. Talk about adding insult to injury…

And guess what. Johnny really wasn’t there!

According to Neil, later on, the people responsible for the show were going nuts backstage. Pulling their hair out! Where the hell was he!? Nobody knew!

They’d been stalling for too long, which helps to explain the long night. I mean, can you imagine the bedlam there would be with everybody angry as hell… and demanding their money back?! After stringing us along seemigly forever, and then torturing us with Yodeling Slim a second time.

A coupla days later, Neil described Johnny’s actual arrival this way: All of a sudden a backstage double door was kicked open, letting the wind and rain gust in. And there he was! In a long, black coat, possibly a rain coat, and a cigarette poking out of the corner of his mouth. Behind him stood the band with their guitar cases and amps. Dripping wet, he stepped inside and flicked his cigarette butt across the floor! And Neil? He chased that butt down and scooped it up! And yes. He had himself a genuine, bona-fide Johnny Cash souvenir!

I know that he kept this memento for a long time in his billfold because he showed it to me. More than once.

However, once when I related this story to some people over at David’s home a few years ago, Neil pooh-poohed my account by saying, “I think you’re using quite a bit of poetic license there, Tommy,” to which David spoke up in my defense, “The hell he is.”

(Sorry, Neil)

Anyway, it turned out that Johnny and his good ol’ boys in the band were quite inebriated. That much was obvious by the way we watched Johnny swagger up to June Carter out there on the stage, toss his guitar over his back to hang off his shoulder by the guitar strap, grab June around the waist, tip her over a few degrees below the horizontal, and plant the longest kiss I’d ever seen planted on anybody’s lips. And the crowd erupted with whistles and catcalls! I was shocked!

I didn’t know it then because I knew nothing about June and very little about Johnny except his wonderful music, but both of them were married. And not to each other.

But not for long, after that.

A few days after the concert, word got around that Johnny and the band had demolished a couple of motel rooms where they’d spent their night. Probably in a drunken blackout. I don’t know.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But what I do know is… hell, that was one unforgettable date! Very heady stuff. Especially for a couple of small-town, never-been-anywheres like Phyllis and I. But as far as I was concerned, I’d totally done it. Because after a date like that, what girl was ever gonna drop me? I drove her home thinking, Oh yeah, chick’s gonna stick with me. (OK, I admit it. Actually I was thinking that with a big ‘I hope‘ tacked on.) But it was pretty good plus yardage for me.

I mean, hey, I was in with the Mallet Brothers, right? So, like, from her point of view, maybe anything was possible. Maybe I really would end up taking her to see Elvis next, for all she knew. Or… Ricky Nelson. Or…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But you know what blows my mind? That none of this might have (wouldn’t have), happened had it not been for one musical instrument that my Aunt Elva had purchased for my mom, Violet Lyford back in the early 1940’s.

Because in 1963, it just so happens that one antique guitar was shown to two young boys, along with a tiny bit of brainless instruction about how to play four simple guitar chords. And a duo who called themselves The Mallett Brothers hit the stage shortly after.

Later the youngest one, David, went off to college with his guitar, and over time blossomed into this amazing national and international singer-songwriter who to this day has seventeen albums to his credit. And today, two of his sons are setting the world, or at least America for now, on fire as The Mallett Brothers 2.0.

You want some irony though? Some twenty-five years later, after the original Mallett Brothers began, I’m still fooling around with those same stinkin’ four chords. Yeah. How do you like them apples?

But whatta say… LET’S HEAR IT FOR MA’S GUITAR…!!!

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THE BIOLOGY OF UN-GOING STEADY & a Teen’s Introduction to The Human Comedy…

So in the last episode…

Ma had just learned that, as a mere fifteen-year-old, I’d single-handedly besmirched the family’s reputation by casting decency to the wind and unabashedly ‘making out’ in front of God and all the fans during most of an entire basketball game in the Foxcroft Academy gym. And yes, it was bad enough to do that, but on top of that I’d also rubbed the family’s nose in the dirt by choosing to publicly ‘make out’ with a CATHOLIC!

But hey, I didn’t know she WAS Catholic!

But here’s some biology I had learned in biology that morning:

When you’re the guy, and the damsel in distress just happens to be The Class Hemophiliac of 1964, The One Most Likely to Bleed Out, (the one, by the way, whose finger you pricked in the first place,) and whose hand you were ordered to hold in order to keep her from bleeding out… it turns out you just automatically imprint on her. You know, like the newly-hatched duckling imprints on the first biological entity it encounters.

So: not totally my fault...

“Well, you’ve seen THE LAST OF HER… You KNOW that, right?!” Ma decreed.

LIKE HELL I HAVE! …is what I was thinking. But what I actually mumbled as I shuffled off to bed was, “Well, that’s gonna be difficult considering we do both attend the same small school, plus the fact that we are enrolled in the same science class. So, we’re bound to… you know… mumble mumble mumble… etc.”

“YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So three things:

(1) I went to bed that night impatient to wake back up the next morning, get myself to school as soon as possible, meet up with Sue, and while away the day meeting her in the hall by her locker and sitting at her table in the cafeteria…

(2) I went to bed marveling at the unexpected magic of having walked to how I’d walked to school that morning as a Pinocchio but returned home after the game as a real boy!

and (3) I went to bed champing at the bit to start getting acquainted with my new self in the morning!

I mean, I couldn’t get over it: I was no longer ME (thank God). I was an entirely different person! I was a kisser now! It was kinda like that movie The Body Snatchers, if you think about it.

It had literally taken me no time at all. Like learning to swim by having your swim coach just throw you right off the dock, sink or swim.

Why had I ever imagined it was so difficult?

One of the good things about it was that I now had “credentials.” For instance, a couple of episodes ago I’d described how devastated I was when I found I just couldn’t quite dare to make myself take that particular next step (kissing) with my girlfriend at the time. So yeah, I’d got dumped for being “too boring.” But I couldn’t help it. For some reason, I just wasn’t ready.

But… ha-HAH! One evening at the Rec Center that same ex-girlfriend spied me over in a far dark corner of the dance floor making-out like crazy with Sue. So she made it a point to just happen to stroll past us. She stopped for a moment, looked at me with a raised eyebrow, and said, “Well— sure looks like you’ve changed!”

Made. My. Day!

See? Credentials!

God, my adolescence was SO STUPID!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One of the things that was so bizarre about starting to go out with Sue is that I didn’t know the first thing about her. Nor she about me. Somehow, two strangers, we’d just bonded instantly. Just like that. With one random snick of the biology lab fingertip-nicker instrument (try saying that five times fast). It was like being in one of those speed-dating marathons, only to find you’d found the one you want on the very first go-round. Bang. I was in a hit-and-run ‘relationship’… but with whom?

Because I really had no idea by whom or what I’d just been captured. And yeah, captured is the right word. Because she was the one who’d made the move. Not me.

Her? She was active. Me? Passive as all get out. Her? Bold. Me? Pretty much a mouse. A mouse who’d spent his last three years (passively) praying for a real girlfriend to happen. And then, unexpectedly and ‘magically’… it just had!

Me? A male Cinderella.

And then it turned out she was older than me by almost a year. So apparently we’d just broken the rule that stated girls mature a couple years ahead of boys, so an older girl would never find what she’d be looking for in the likes of me.

Her? A high school ‘cougar’?

What an odd state of affairs.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Immediately we started hanging out together every day after school. Like a lot of the Academy kids, we’d walk the mile from FA down to Lanpher’s Drug store.

We became a thing.

Toward the end of our sophomore year, I got my class ring. I chose the gold, with the onyx stone. And of course I loved and cherished it. So much so that I just couldn’t wait to give it away. I immediately had to ask Sue to go steady with me. And she said yes!

So, before long the cryptic initials “S. D.” & “T. L.” began showing up all through the pages of that gossip rag they tried to pass off as a school newspaper.

Yeah. And I remember the rest of that school year with Sue seeming to fly by in a blur, like one of those 1940s’ black-and-white-nightlife movie montages. You’ve seen them, in those movies where your country-bumpkin main character somehow gets discovered by a talent scout, leaves his little-one-horse-town-farm-values behind, only to get corrupted in Hollywood. And then you view his downward spiral into the dark hell of Tinsel Town’s carnival of wild parties, sex, and drugs depicted as a rapid succession of images set to a dizzying, jazzy soundtrack: the neon signs depicting champagne glasses, scenes of taxi cabs pulling up to nightclubs and casinos, burlesque beauties, those successive calendar pages flying off the wall…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hey, guess what! One day Sue got her driver’s license. She was ecstatic. Of course, I was happy, too. This meant we could go out on some dates.

But there was a bit of a dark side for me. Namely, it left me feeling pretty embarrassed. To, you know, have Sue always pulling up in our driveway and tooting the horn, letting me know that she was sitting out there waiting on me. I mean, it was supposed to be the other way around. Traditionally, the guy was supposed to be the one doing that. So I couldn’t help feeling kind of creepy about it. I mean, what self-respecting boy wants to be a ‘kept man”?

But hey! It wouldn’t be too long before I got my license as well, would it. Just a matter of weeks. Then things would be alright. Yeah, then. I had to keep telling myself that. And telling myself that. And telling myself that…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hey, and guess what else happened! One day I……… flunked MY driver’s test.

(There’s an interesting story about how I flunked that test, but I’ll save it for another time.)

I was not ecstatic. I was depressed. Deeply.

That meant weeks more of waiting before I could get another shot at it. Weeks that would feel like months of going through the continued ignominy of waiting for the beep of Sue’s horn in the driveway. Weeks of those old bag, busybody neighbors of mine all thinking to themselves:(tsk tsk!) There’s that brash, wild girlfriend of his again!

God, how I hated to have to tell her I flunked it. God, how I hated how my life stunk. Sue was obviously sad about it too, although she covered that up pretty well. But I knew I’d failed her. Along with myself. I felt nervous and unsure about what the unexpected lack of a license would mean about our going steady.

And I felt like a little damn kid!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I guess our dates must not really have amounted to much. I mean besides that first, all-important, make-out marathon of our ‘basketball’ date, I can’t really remember any other one with any clarity at all. With one exception. Which was a dance, right at the end of our sophomore year, in June.

The departing seniors had rented the Legion Hall for their good-bye party. Anybody could attend though. We were both pumped to go, despite my excitement having been dampened by the ongoing shame of having to once again wait on Sue’s horn out in the driveway.

It was an impressive dance, DJ’d by one of their own class members. There were refreshments and decorations. But there’s really one reason why this one stands out in my memory as much as it does.

A very popular couple (a senior boy and his steady girlfriend, a girl from our sophomore class) got into a big argument, apparently the last one of many before. And although none of us wanted it to happen, we watched them break up right then and there in front of us! That cast a pall over the rest of the evening. It was like a lot of us were part of an unofficial imaginary fan club of this couple, and when they broke it off it seemed to affect us all. I will always remember it as such a dark, really sad affair…

I remember really wondering just how awful such a break-up like that would feel. And I guess, you know… me with no license and all, I was worrying about the longevity of mine and Sue’s relationship as well. Because Sue had started hinting around, every once in a while, about maybe going out to California to live. But I was so into us that I couldn’t believe she really meant it.

At the same time, though, she seemed to remain perfectly OK about me not having my license yet. So, I wasn’t too worried. And besides, right up till July, we were still going strong.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Right about then, my younger cousin, Freddy, invited me to accompany him and his parents to travel down through the White Mountains of New Hampshire for a week-long visit with an uncle of his. I had serious second thoughts about going, as I really wasn’t too keen about leaving Sue. But somehow I got talked into it.

Heck, it would only be for a week, so that wasn’t so bad, really.

And I ended up having such a wonderful time on that trip. Freddy and I got golf lessons from his old man before we hit the greens at a professional 18-hole golf course. And then he smuggled us into the large Rockingham Park racetrack where we got to bet on the horses, even though we were underage. A number of memorable and entertaining things kept us hopping throughout the entire week we spent down there.

One REALLY memorable thing, however, occurred the minute we got back home.

Several friends of mine couldn’t wait to tell me the news: Sue had started going out with another guy! I couldn’t believe it. I just didn’t want to believe it. So I refused to believe it, you know? But then when one of those friends delivered back into my hands my class ring, I fell apart. I was crushed!

Sue had broken up with me. And without a word. Without even a good-bye. Without even giving me my ring back herself! Without giving me a reason.

Of course if I hadn’t been half-head-over-heels-blind, I could’ve seen it coming from a mile away. There are none so blind as those who will not see, yadda-yadda. She really had been making plans to go to California all along. Of course she had.

And she was older than me, even though not by much. So… there was that rule cropping up once again, the one about girls developing a couple of years ahead of us. I wonder how we lasted so long actually.

And then too, it (once again) had much to do with my old nemesis: my “boring” quality. And by that, I’m referring to me developing physically, emotionally (and sexually) in the slower (if not the break-down) lane. After having gotten comfortable with hugging and cuddling with my last girlfriend, I’d really only added a single step forward in this latest relationship. And that was kissing. And only kissing. I mean, even though from my point-of-view I’d been feeling I was beltting home runs out of the park with Sue, I wasn’t. I’d actually never even gotten to see what was on the other side of second-base.

Boring-again-me.

We’d gone together for a few months. Making-out right to the end. But apparently it was really just puppy love I’d been experiencing. However, it had felt like love to me. So…

I had a hard reality to face. She was just… gone. Totally. It was like she had stopped existing on this planet. And what did I do? How did I react?

By retiring to my bedroom, that’s how. And I didn’t want to come out, ever again. I just wanted to stay there lying in my bed for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to eat. Didn’t want to talk. Didn’t care if I ever got my license or not.

What was the point? Life was just bad.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

OK. Spoiler alert. This is where I’m going to go maudlin on you. Because… well, don’t you think maudlin is called for in a scenario like this.

You’ve been warned.

A box of tissues is suggested…

You ready?

Ae you sure? Here I go.

A couple of weeks slogged by. And during that whole time, I had one, single “friend,” and one “friend” only— one single “person” in the entire universe who seemed to understand not only me, but the misery I was going through…

That’s right…

I pretty much had his complete works right there in my room— well, his complete works up to that point in his career, anyway.

But let me tell you… that man sang to me straight from my record player and the heart. All day and all night long. Letting me know that, not only did he know what I was going through, but that he was going through exactly the same thing himself, right along with me.

Yes, “Cry, Cry, Cry,” “There You Go,” “Home of the Blues,” “I Still Miss Someone”— all those heart-grinding songs, so many of them. But… the one he seemed to have written exclusively just for me (the one that sang The Sad Story of My Sad, Sad Heart during those doggone, lonesome, blue weeks of my bedroom pity-party) was one that had a ring of acceptance about it, one that seemed to offer a tough-love, healing philosophy:

“Guess Things Happen That Way.”

Here. Take a listen for yourself. You’ll see what I mean:

Yeah, me and Johnny. Johnny and me. We understood each other. And he was working so hard to get me through the darkness. I mean, nobody wants to go through it alone.

Yeah, Johnny and I go way back.

And all I can say is… thanks, man.

ME FINALLY GETTING MY APPETITE BACK (‘THE GHOST OF MAN IN BLACK’ IN THE BACKGROUND…)

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THE BIOLOGY OF GOING STEADY II: She Blinded Me With Science !!

From the conclusion of THE BIOLOGY OF GOING STEADY…

“Ah hah. She was there. Fate? And Serendipity?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She spotted me first.

I saw this little, nonchalant wave from way up there at the uppermost level of the bleacher seats. Along with the hint of a wry smile? I waved back and smiled back, and then began threading my way up between the seated fans to join her.

But man, I was feeling a queasy apprehensiveness (otherwise known as cowardly cold feet.) Because I honestly didn’t know exactly what I was doing. I had no idea what to say when I got up there. There was no plan. No script. No brain functioning at the moment. So unlike me. Winging it. Onward and upward though!

But God! What were we ever gonna talk about…? Biology?

I eased myself down beside her. We had the gym’s cinder block wall behind us to lean our backs against. I took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. And then… we eyeballed each other for a moment. Me, daring myself not to avert my eyes in this uncomfortable, eye-to-eye-contact contest. My brain-dead shyness was breathing its bad breath down my neck, just waiting for the cue. And me, pretty sure I’d just put my foot in it once again.

“You came,” she said. That was like moving a pawn forward a couple of spaces to start the game.

My move.

“Yeah.”

My intimidated pawn cautiously crawling only a single space out onto the board.

Her move. (please say something please say something please…)

“I wasn’t sure you would.”

OK, my move, my move, my move! What to say? God, this was like my first time swimming all the way out over my head at the beach, hoping like hell I was gonna make it out to The Float without drowning, or at least getting any bloodsuckers stuck on me!

“Yeah. Me either. Same here. I mean. I wasn’t sure you’d… you know…”

Pure eloquence!

“So…” she said.

“So…” That was me. (obviously.)

“Guess it’s time.”

“Yeah.”

Wait. What?

“Uhm, time for… what? What for exactly?”

She held up her index finger. “You said you wanted to see it.”

“Oh, God, yes! Yeah.”

You know what? Somehow she didn’t seem a thing like the same girl I’d been assigned as a lab partner that morning. That girl with the sullen, angry, Jimmy Dean vibe. (And yes, I know I should’ve come up with some female movie star’s name other than Jimmy Dean’s, who was, yes, a guy, but…

She proffered me her hand. I took it. Once again. I took a breath. Then pretended, with a put-on, officious frown, to administer a professional medical examination of the finger. “Yes,” I said presumptuously. “Hmmm. I see, I see.”

“SO… is it… OK?”

“Well, yes. It is.” Were we really playing ‘Doctor‘ here? “I see you’re down to a single, standard Band-aid. That’s a good sign.”

“Oh yes. Johnson & Johnson.”

“Of course. The very best.”

“So…?”

“Uhmmm… so… lemme think… Well, I guess take two aspirin, stop being a bleeder, and call me in the morning.”

My God, we were talking. I was talking.

“Technically, I’m not a bleeder though.”

OK. That earned a frown from me. “No? Oh, that’s right. Because… technically you didn’t bleed out and drop dead on the biology classroom floo…”

I didn’t get to finish that sentence. And the reason is…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

OK. What I’m about to relate IS, I swear, a true story. If you find it unbelievable, just know this: looking back on it, so do I. And so did my brother. Not to mention my mother, after she found out about it. But this really did happen. Only the dialogue here is generally and creatively extrapolated from the known bits and pieces of this distant recollection. The actions herein are not. They are 100% real.

The memory of this… let’s call it the ‘in-the-bleachers moment’ (along with the many like-minutes that followed on its heels) I’ve kept stored away in the private little “steamer trunk” in my head for all these decades, along with all my other bizarre, embarrassing, or in some cases seriously unfortunate real secrets.

So, why now? Age, I guess. From the perspective of this, my 78^th year on the planet, things that once made me blush, or made my heart practically beat itself right out of the ribs of my rib cage, seem silly and trivial now. And so many, I’ve discovered, can make for some pretty entertaining stories, just begging to be let out of the box and be told.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So. Sue had just claimed, “Technically, I’m not a bleeder though.”

And my snarky comeback began, “No? Oh that’s right. Because technically you didn’t bleed out and drop dead on the biology classroom floo…”

And the reason I didn’t get to finish that sentence is…

She kissed me! And Wow! I really hadn’t seen that coming! And it happened so fast, I didn’t have time to duck. But when I say she kissed me, I mean she KISSED me! This was no peck on the cheek! No smack on the lips! She planted one on my mouth that kept it shut for 30 seconds! She’d wrapped her left arm around my neck and then pressed her right hand on the back of my head while she did it!

Now, did I stop her and try to push her away? Did I say, “Hold on, there. Don’t you think that was a little inappropriate? I mean, considering we’re seated right out here in public at a basketball game, in plain sight of a couple hundred fans?”

Nope. The answer is no. N-O, NO. I did not.

I mean, c’mon guys, I was fifteen, right? Juliet’s age in Romeo and Juliet (and me not due to turn sixteen until July, seven months away.) And whoa, I was just getting really kissed for the very first time in my life, wasn’t I! And it had happened so fast, any pros and cons I might have had would’ve just been swept away right out on the tide like so much flotsam and jetsam anyway. Yeah, this being my first “real” kiss and all, what happened to me during that thirty-seconds was something the likes of which I’d never could’ve imagined.

First of all, I was stunned. Stunned emotionally, but also physically, like I’d just been stung all over in a somewhat pleasant jellyfish attack.

Secondly the world all around me had just shrunk right down to a Sue-and-I-sized bubble. I mean, where’d that basketball game go? I didn’t know. I didn’t question it. I didn’t care. Out of sight, out of mind.

I could only concentrate on the face looking back at me, close as a mirror image.

Thirdly, the only thing going on around that bubble for all I knew was those Fourth of July fireworks. Because from my preadolescent viewpoint, that was a Hollywood kiss! Just like in the movies, where I’d been primed to expect a crescendo of orchestra music and fireworks.

And finally, something “magical” was going on; something was happening all over me, inside and out, from head to toe, and I had no idea how to take it. It was like a buzz. Best comparison I can come up with is a massive infusion of adrenaline. Close, I guess, but no cigar. No, it was something else. (And no, I’m not talking about something of a prurient or sexual nature, so get your mind out of the gutter, if that’s where it is. It was nothing like that.)

OK, now today I know exactly what was going on, whereas way back there in those Dark Ages of the early 1960’s, it was something none of my generation could ever possibly have had even an inkling of. So…

I’ll lay it all out for you so that, in my defense, you will completely understand why I was in no position, in no state of mind whatsoever, to have had the wherewithal to say, “Hold on, there. Don’t you think that was a little inappropriate? I mean, considering we’re seated right out here in public at a basketball game in plain sight of a couple hundred fans?”

And yes, I have every confidence you will find me innocent of all charges.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But first… It’s time for a little TED TALK here. So get out your pens and notebooks, boys and girls. I’m going to teach you something about the Science of Kissing. I’m going to explain three Facts of Life that I’m betting you are unaware of or, if you have stumbled upon this information in the past, you’ve likely forgotten all about it.

The following is an article I discovered on Google. The author is one Emer Maguire, winner of the Northern Irish Installment of the International Science Communication Competition, FameLab.

READ IT. THERE COULD BE A QUIZ AFTERWARD…

“WHAT HAPPENS IN OUR BRAIN WHEN WE KISS?

“The brain goes into overdrive during the all-important kiss. It dedicates a disproportionate amount of space to the sensation of the lips in comparison to much larger body parts. During a kiss, this lip sensitivity causes our brain to create a chemical cocktail that can give us a natural high. This cocktail is made up of three chemicals, all designed to make us feel good and crave more: dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin.

“Like any cocktail, this one has an array of side-effects. The combination of these three chemicals work by lighting up the ‘pleasure centres’ in our brain. The dopamine released during a kiss can stimulate the same area of the brain activated by heroin and cocaine. As a result, we experience feelings of euphoria and addictive behaviour. Oxytocin, otherwise known as the ‘love hormone’, fosters feelings of affection and attachment. This is the same hormone that is released during childbirth and breastfeeding. Finally, the levels of serotonin present in the brain whilst kissing look a lot like those of someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

“No wonder the memory of a good kiss can stay with us for years.”

And so, worthy Members of the Jury, I ask you to now consider the evidence that undeniably finds my client, little Tommy Lyford here, INNOCENT of any and all charges. Because, as the facts have clearly shown, at the much too innocent age of only fifteen (and also unbeknownst to him), he was unwittingly administered a powerful Dopamine-Oxytocin-Serotonin Cocktail that had rendered him not only unable to lucidly make sound and healthy decisions, but also left him in an induced state of helpless euphoria.

And… ahem, in the very words of the defendant himself, in his closing statement delivered earlier after taking the stand and testifying in his own defense…

“For cryin’ out loud! SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE!“

(The defense rests.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Alright. Now that I’ve been exonerated in the courtroom of my own mind at least, the story continues…

Maybe twelve seconds after the kiss ended, I found myself reeling. And gazing into an impish twinkle in her pale blue eyes. And what devilish message was that flirtatious grin taunting me with? How’d you like them apples, homeboy? Or, Boy, you oughtta see your face right now?

I had no idea. I was just… happily flustered, to say the least. The Hollywood movie I’d been longing for in my daydreams had just come right down off the silver screen and right into the movie seats to audition me.

And… when I noticed her face starting to float back over toward mine once again for a close-up re-take of my screen-test, my face ended up meeting hers half-way! Coked to the gills on the Dopamine-Oxytocin-Serotonin-Cocktail, I threw myself into the role!

Knowing practically nothing about real “love scenes,” it turned out I must have been somewhat of an idiot-savant. A star was born!

We kissed each other’s brains out!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Later that evening I was home, and situated at the kitchen table having a snack from the fridge. Just Ma and I were there. Everything was fine. In fact everything was really far better than fine. I was glowing inside. And why not? Glinda the Good Witch had (apparently) floated down from The Emerald City and tapped me with her magic wand.

It was just like Pinocchio becoming a real boy. One minute I was Barney Fife…

and Hey Presto! the next minute I was a certified make-out-artist-Lothario!

Life was good. Going over and over the evening in my mind, I was still rocked by it all. I mean, Einstein was right: Time actually can stand still! Did you know that? I mean, first there was that amazing, steamroller kiss. Then… we’d leaned into each other and, wow, the real kissing began. And even though it seemed like we’d just begun… suddenly, like Cinderella’s twin-alarm-clock fairy godmothers, Sue’s actual twin sisters (I didn’t even know she had twin sisters) were urgently tapping on both of our shoulders, telling us it was time for Sue to go home, that their ride was here. Wow. It was like… waking up.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But yeah. Back to the present: There I was sitting at the kitchen table, when suddenly the kitchen door burst open! It was my older brother, Denny. He came barging in to the kitchen like Paul Revere sounding the alarm!

Denny: Ma! Tommy was making-out with a girl tonight! Practically all night, too!

Ma (from the pantry): WHAT!

Me: (cringing silently)

Denny: Right there in the bleachers, Ma! During the game and everything!

Ma (bustling into the kitchen): “NO!”

Denny: Yes! And he wouldn’t stop! He just kept… jeez, doing it!

Me (privately under his breath): Why oh WHY, just once can’t you do something bad so I can rat you out?!

Ma (incensed): TOMMY???

Denny: Right in front of everybody! Right there in the bleachers where everybody…

Ma: I said, TOMMY???

Me (in desperation): That’s not true! We were seated way up top in the bleachers. There was nobody behind us to see, Ma! And everybody in front of us…well, they was watching the GAME! I SWEAR!

Denny: How the heck would YOU ever know?

Ma (fit to be tied): We didn’t bring you up like… ! We didn’t bring you up to make a SPECTACLE of yourself, and our family, like that! You should be ASHAMED of yourself!

Me (biting my tongue, wanting to say: But you know what, Ma? I’m NOT!)

Ma: Just you wait till your father gets home!

Denny: Oh yeah. And there’s one more thing!

Ma: Oh Lord, no! What?

Me (cringing even worse):

Denny: (plunging the dagger deep in my back) She’s (drum roll, please)… Catholic! And she’s a (blanked-out-family-name for anonymity)! You know, the ones from Atkinson!

Me (whispering under his breath): “Et tu, Bruté?”

Ma: OK, mister, You are so grounded!!!!!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But… TO END ON A LIGHT NOTE…

I need to say this. I’m a big Seinfeld fan. And whenever I re-visit the above confrontation in my head, all I can think of is that hilarious episode of Seinfeld where Newman (Hello… NEWMAN) barges into Jerry’s apartment and lets it be known that he witnessed Jerry shamefully making out in a movie theater during the screening of Schindler’s List.

Go ahead. Play the clip…

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THE BIOLOGY OF GOING STEADY

I still didn’t really have a lot going for me as a high school freshman.

Well, I had escaped my K-through-8 World. And that was pretty big. I mean, leaving all my embarrassing ‘dirty laundry’ behind me back in grade school:

Getting sucker-punched right off a playground swing seat by… a girl;

Nearly losing my manhood wrapped around a maple tree trunk with a bicycle crossbar between my Buster Browns;

Surviving the shame and trauma of “The First Kiss Gone BAD” Milestone”;

And of course, having barely escaped THE TENDER TRAP set by the two feral little vixens, Sandra (Dee) and Wendy (with my virginity still intact).

But at least on day-one at Foxcroft Academy, I was starting off all over again with a clean slate, playfully toying with the thought of becoming a monk in a monastery. Well no, not really, not seriously. That was just me being a drama queen. But hey, at least I wouldn’t exactly have to take a vow of chastity, would I. The universe seemed to have already conferred that vow on me arbitrarily.

But unfortunately being a high school freshman came with a curse: Health Class had clued me in to the sad truth of the matter that girls mature both physically and mentally two or three years earlier than boys. (And of course I was, like, Gosh, you don’t say! Oh wait… that’s right! Now you mention it, I do seem to recall two chicks named Sandra (Dee) and Wendy who’d definitely surpassed me in maturity.)

But here’s the thing:

(A) First of all, that implied that most girls my own age were only likely to find boys who were older than me (1) more attractive, (2) generally more interesting, and therefore (3) more compatible for dating (damnit!).

(B) I was now, a lowly ninth grader trapped in a grades-nine-through-twelve school building with not one, single, solitary female younger than me in a radius of two miles around in any direction. Meaning, that I was gonna hafta wait two frickin’ years before any female (who might [or even might not] find me (1) attractive, (2) interesting, and therefore (3) compatible for dating) would ever show up!

And (C) damnit all again, when you’ve got at least the beginnings of your hormones sputtering to life inside you, as I had, you just can’t seem to ever throw in the towel and give up trying in spite of yourself. No matter how hard you try.

So there it was, the writing on the wall: my chances for any ninth- or tenth-grade love life loomed before me like some pot-holed, dead-end street.

Yeah, and it wasn’t helping that I wasn’t popular. Plus, no successful athlete either. Me, still short for my age. And all in all… I’m talkin’ basically just some silly, frivolous little class-clown learning vicariously all about life through the likes of Mad Magazine and …

that quirky and very dated 1950’s sit-com, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. (About this: please understand that the irony of that show’s title was the fact that Dobie Gillis could never end up getting himself a girlfriend if his life depended on it.) (And if that scenario should sound somehow familiar, you’re probably thinking of my life up to this point in my story. In fact, I seriously considered titling this post “I, Dobie Gillis“).

All the beautiful babes on the show (like Thalia Menninger below, played by teen, Tuesday Weld) always ended up going for the filthy rich guys (like Milton Armitage, played by Warren Beatty [also below], or the popular captains of the sports teams).

See, like Dobie, I too was stuck obsessing over the bevy of out-of-reach, more-mature-than-me, high school dreamboats that were always whispering and giggling together in the cafeteria.

Well. OK. I did have that one and only thing going for me. The Charles Simic thing. Poetry. I’d been dabbling in doggerel (poetry written by dogs) ever since fourth grade. My rhyming-dictionary-brain could put just about any thoughts or sentiments into rhyme. In fact, by the time I’d got to high school, I’d already built myself quite a little reputation as the ‘Class Poet.’ (Also the ‘Class Clown,’ but that’s neither here nor there.)

So anyway, there I was, languishing in the leaky rowboat of my potential ‘love-life,’ adrift on a sea of study halls, and praying to Neptune that by casting my poetry nets and shiny little poem-lures, I just might beat the odds, just might luck out and reel in one of the more (alright, perhaps more desperate) physically and mentally developed trophies lurking out there in those shallows of academia…

Me, The Young Man and the Sea.

But it’s funny, isn’t it. How sometimes “The best-laid plans of mice and men go oft awry”? How Fate and Serendipity can conspire by rolling the dice of your destiny behind your back?

What I’m hinting at is…

SOMETHING ACTUALLY HAPPENED!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In Lap Lary‘s biology class (familiarly called “Lap” because as the high school track coach, I guess he was known for making slackers run extra laps), I sat in a front seat. Sitting in the front seat wasn’t my idea. Lap [Fate] put me there to help me ‘pay attention.’ Yeah, he was very helpful that way.

I wasn’t at all thrilled with biology, but occasionally we had a lab that was actually interesting. Case in point, one day as part of a unit on the circulatory system, we were learning about the different blood types. The lab required us to pair up with the student seated next to us [Serendipity] and (and here was the scary part) draw a few drops of blood from each other. Those drops would then be mounted on slides to be examined under a microscope, and then ‘typed’ by us.

So the student seated next to me happened to be a girl. A girl I didn’t know. And I knew everybody else in that class because we sophomores had all been freshmen together. But this girl hadn’t been. I knew absolutely nothing about her. And of course, it felt a little awkward, being assigned some unknown girl as an instant lab partner, especially when I was expecting to pair up with one of my buddies.

But, whatever— I dragged my desk around so the fronts of mine and hers were touching and she and I were facing each other.

“Tom,” I said, by way of introduction.

Looking a lot bored, she responded, “Sue.”

She was very skinny, kind of plain, and seemingly freckled all over. I mean, if the school were to put on a play version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, she’d be a shoo-in for Tom’s girlfriend, Becky Thatcher. No Natalie Wood there. But of course, I was more a lot more Mickey Rooney than a Paul Newman, so…

“Can I ask how where you’re from?”

“Can you? You just did,” she said sourly.

“Yeah. OK. I’m sorry. None of my busin…”

“This class stinks.”

“Oh.” So. Neither a Natalie nor an academic, then. “OK.” I tried for a little chit-chat. “Yeah. And me? I’m not doing too hot at it right now. I”ll probably end up right back here in this same seat, same time next year.”

“Doubt it,” she said, rolling he eyes like she found my attempt at chit-chat boring. But of course she would, wouldn’t she, what with girls maturing a couple of years earlier than guys. Whatever.

Lap was distributing the lab kits: alcohol swabs, Band-aids, cotton-batting balls, the little silver cylinder that housed its tiny, spring-operated fingertip-nicker, and our microscopes. “Whattaya say?” I asked. “Wanna do me first, or should I do…”

“I’ll do you.”

“Oh. OK. Hey, You sound a little nervous.”

“You’re the nervous one here.”

She was right. So I decided to zip it. And we began. with her swabbing the tip of my index finger.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Minutes later, I was winding a Band-aid around it, not that I was really bleeding or anything. Just a couple drips. Turned out my blood is O-positive. Good to know. Then it was my turn.

So she laid her small, surprisingly cold hand, knuckles-down, in my open palm. I swabbed her fingertip, cocked the little silver doo-hickey, and asked, “You ready?”

“Whatta you think?”

Hmmm. I said, “O-kay.” Man, so far I barely knew what her voice even sounded like, she was so talkative.

Not that I cared. (snick!)

I already had the glass slide lying at the ready on a paper towel. So, like a cop inking a felon’s fingerprint, I turned her hand over and gently dabbed her finger (which was bleeding rather noticeably, by the way) on the slide, immediately thinking, Whoa, that’s a little more blood than I was expecting! Actually, blood was dribbling off over all four sides of the little slide. And when I tried to cap that slide with the upper slide in preparation for the microscope, Jesus, blood squished right out from between them! By that time, it was more than a little obvious that her bleeding was getting more than just a little out of control. My fingers were all bloodied.

“Oh my God!” I said, which is most always what I say just before a panic attack kicks in. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah.”

Oh? ‘Yeah?‘ I thought. You are? I snatched up the dinky little Band-aid and, in trying to tear it out of its paper wrapper, nearly tore it in half! And Jesus, now the blood was getting all over both my hands and hers, not to mention the entire Band-aid while I struggled trying to remove its two little plastic tabs! Meanwhile, there was red Rorschach blot growing on the paper towel, just like my panic! Jesus! The Band-aid just wasn’t going to cut it!

I dropped it and pinched the tip of her finger tight to stanch the bleeding, leaned my big-bulging-eyed, panicked-face right up eye-to-eye with her calm face (jeez, how could she be calm?!), and whispered, “I don’t know what’s going on here!”

“I’m… Well, I’m kind of a bleeder,” she confessed.

A bleeder! Kind of?! Oh yeah, that’ was all’s all I needed to hear right then! (And she’d said it so calmly! As if she were just telling me her shoe size or something. JESUS! SHOULDN’T SHE BE PANICKING TOO?!)

“Mr. Lary!” I yelled over my shoulder. No answer. “MISTER LARY! We need HELP OVER HERE!” A second or two passed. Then from somewhere seemingly way too far off in the classroom behind me, I heard his bemused voice. “Be with you in a minute.”

In a MINUTE??? No! “NOWWWWWWW! RIGHT NOWWWW! HELP! WE GOT BLOOD HERE!” And then there he was! Standing over our double-desks and looking down upon the mess! “Oh wow! That’s… That’s a lotta blood!”

“I know I know I KNOW! She’s a BLEEDER, damnit!”

“Ooh! OK. Keep pressure on that finger. Be right back. Going for the first-aid kit!” And off he went. Leaving me holding hands with a dying sophomore! And by now, most of the kids were gathering around us, ooh-ing and ahh-ing and packing us in close, finding the two of us deliciously fascinating!

But… blood is a funny thing, isn’t it. For some, it just is what it is. For others, it’s just not so wise to let them catch sight of it. Take Ronnie, for instance.

Ronnie the big, brave football player. While peering down upon my partner’s little bloodbath of a desktop, his face drained of all color, leaving his complexion ashy, with an almost greenish tint. Then, like an oak… TIMBER! Down he went! Fortunately for him, someone caught and cradled his head before it would otherwise have bounced off the floor.

Lap had reappeared but, jeez, now he was on his knees tending to Ronnie! Me thinking, Let the lunk tend to his OWN self, why don’tcha?!

I found Sue looking at me, still all cucumber-calm. Which irked me, in my panic. “ Now look what you’ve gone and done.”

“Me?! You’re the one that stabbed me, remember?!” Wow. I hadn’t seen that coming!

“Well,, when you were stabbing me, mighn’t you have just given me a little heads up at least that you were a bleeder!”

“I’m not a bleeder. I just…”

“And you stabbed me first!

“I only…” And then this Sue that I’d only just met suddenly burst out laughing! I hadn’t seen that coming either.

Then, I don’t know why, but I started to laugh. And let me tell you, I really wasn’t in the mood for laughing, either. But too bad for me, right?.

And then her laughing ratcheted itself up a couple, three, notches. She was laughing hard now. Which was crazy, right? And next thing you knew, (I couldn’t help it) I was laughing my head off too! The two of us totally out of control. And what a sight that must’ve been. Two blood-blotched little mental patients strapped to the mad scientist’s blood besotted operating table and cackling it up hysterically! For a full minute.

We laughed our asses off.

She was lucky she didn’t bleed out…

After Lap had got Ronnie taken care of and back up on his feet, and Sue’s finger bandaged up tight and properly, the class was pretty much over.

While we were waiting for the bell (our desks now back in their rows, side-by-side again) I asked her if I could check out her finger once more. “Just to make sure there’s no blood seeping through that big fat bandage.” That almost started us up again.

But once again she laid her hand in mine. We were once again holding hands.

“Looking good now,” I reported officiously.

“So are you,” she said. “Well… I mean, honestly, you were looking pretty green there. I kept thinking, Oh, that’s all I need right now. To have, you know, this guy pass out on top of that guy, and then maybe the whole class going down like a bunch of dominoes.”

My God, she had such a very warm smile. And I was thinking, So that’s what her voice sounds like.

And then I realized that I was grinning like an idiot.

After a long awkward silence, I thought of something to say. “So, where is it you live, anyway.”

“Atkinson.”

“Ah.” Atkinson being a little village maybe eight to ten miles west from town. “So, I guess you’ll be… grabbing the bus home right after school this afternoon then.”

“Nope. You couldn’t pay me to ride that bus.”

“So how do you get home then?”

“Either one of my brothers or my dad. They’ll pick me and my sisters up tonight.”

“Tonight? Well, what’ll you do in the meantime?”

“Oh, just hang out. Like we always do. And whoever does pick us up, it’ll be after the game tonight.”

“The basketball game? Oh, you’re going to that?”

“Yup.”

“Huh! Yeah. Me too.” What was I saying? I wasn’t planning on going to any basketball game. “So… maybe I’ll see you there.”

“Yeah.” Still smiling. “Maybe you will.”

“Yeah. And I probably should, you know, check that finger again.” Oh my God. Had I actually said that? “I mean, ahem, you know. Make sure the bleeding has completely stopped.”

“OK. Provided I haven’t bled to death in the meantime.”

The end-of-class bell was ringing. “Oh please. Don’t do that.”

Out in the hall I watched her disappear in the hallway crush.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Feeling somewhat nervous, I stepped in from the December cold, paid my admission fee in the gym lobby, and walked into the clamor of refs’ whistles, the dribbling ball, squeaks of sneakers on the polished floor, and the occasional GHAAAKK! of the buzzer. The hometown-side’s bleachers were packed.

I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what was feeding my angst. Just the uncertainty about whatever lay in store for me that evening, if anything at all.

I began scanning the crowd. I doubted she’d be there. Either way, what did I even care? I didn’t know her. She didn’t know me. She was just somebody I’d… well, somebody I’d held hands with that morning. For a few minutes. That’s all.

But for some reason though, something had felt oddly intimate that morning. Hah. Two complete strangers with apparently nothing in common (one who would barely deign to speak to the other at first) being thrown together by fate (fate being in this case Old Lap Lary), and then… and then, unexpectedly, by some somewhat extreme circumstances…

Whoa, right there Trigger! What I just said there? Did sound just a tad bit similar to the opening line of Romeo and Juliet???

Nah. What was I, crazy? No. But damn! I was such a little romantic back then. I mean, did the expression ‘damsel in distress’ perhaps occur to me too? Oh, probably it did. Of course it did. And did my dumbass brain actually toy with the notion that… well, because our hands had spent a few moments clasped, and in blood, too… that we’d undergone some kind of ancient blood ritual? Like, we’d come out the other end as something like…?

OK, I’m not answering that.

Jesus H! That’s just laughable. Pure and simple.

But things like this sometimes make me wonder what my life would look like today if I hadn’t spent my entire childhood practically sneaking into Center Theatre and watching all those movies! I mean… I could’ve been an engineer instead of the bleeding-heart romantic English major I still am today! I could’ve had a simple, black and white life, a life where everything would be explainable by the precise arrangements of ones and zeros, instead of suffering all this messy angst of the heart.

Wait a minute. No. That’s unimaginable. Forget that.

Face it. Like Popeye the Sailor man, I yam what I yam what I yam.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ah hah. She was there.

Fate? And Serendipity?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hey, stay tuned for the ballgame and the rest of the story in the next installment.

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I, YOUNG CYRANO PART(S), THE LAST

Rites of Passage: First REAL Date

From the previous blog…

I discovered note-passing was very much akin to fishing. Because with note-passing, I could, and did, get some “bites.” I found that a really clever note or poem passed to some girl seated two rows or more away in study hall was somewhat likely to get my foot in the door at least, meaning that I could actually score for myself a sunny, pretty-girl smile sent my way from across the classroom now and then. Which, by the way, the first time that happened was when I realized that if I put pen to paper, and then let the paper do the talking instead of me, personally— why, my words on paper could boldly say what I didn’t have the little guts to say in person. Yes, that would be so much more do-able than trying to express myself out loud while gazing eye-to-eye into the face of some bewitching little Shirley Temple… only to discover that my tongue, like Elvis, had suddenly left the building.”

So… that’s when I became my own, one-man Cyrano de Bergerac. I became a cowardly little serial-note-passer in school. I mean, it was better than nuthin’…

So, you know when you’re out there on the lake fishing, and you’re getting pretty bored with all those little nibbles that keep stealing your bait? Or when you do land something, it’s always one of those little sunfish that nobody wants? And you keep dwelling on the depressing fact that you’ve actually never caught a decent fish in your entire life, and never will? But then, all of a sudden…

SPLASH!

You’ve really got something on the line for once!

Well, surprise of all surprises, one of my poem-notes snagged a popular cheerleader, if you can believe that. And cute? Oh yeah. And at first it left me thinking, What’s wrong with THIS picture? Because I mean this was the kind of girl that would make my little circle of cronies fall down and die in disbelief! And wonder of wonders, this girl already knew me and yet honestly seemed to like me! I mean, what was she? Crazy?

OK. I was a year older than her. Maybe it was that weighing in my favor. And probably part of it was because I was on the basketball team, even though basically all I did in that capacity was ride the bench. But, hey, maybe I just looked good in the uniform?

Anyway, her name was… no no, let’s not go there. Let’s just refer to her as… Sandra (Dee).

She went to our church, so like me she was a Methodist. Our parents knew each other and were good friends, so that made the process of me getting to know her even better a lot less unnerving. And her mom thought that the two of us as a “couple” were “cute.”

My mom not so much. She didn’t think I was ready for dating.

But this girl and I really enjoyed talking to one another, which to me was astonishing. We held hands! We ended up going on a couple of movie dates! I even, you know, “accidentally” dropped my arm (from where it was nervously resting up on the back of her seat) onto her shoulders, and… wow, she didn’t even mind! She liked it. And it was great, I tells ya!

I was head-over-heels in love. (Picture here a very anomalous Darth Vader here rasping, “The Crush is strong with this one!)

Of course now, as an adult, I realize I was only head over heels I a crush. But, man, I was on the phone with her all the time.
Not only was I happy. I was SOMEBODY!

And then one day on the phone, this girl let me know something: her parents were going away for an overnight that weekend, and she was going to have to stay home to babysit her baby brother. Excitedly, she told me she wanted me to come over to help babysit. I was dumbstruck! Yes! The whole idea seemed like a dream come true.

However for me, there was a fly in the ointment: that would be Ma.

Oh, I wanted to do this so badly. And no, I swear it was not for any of those prurient reasons you may be thinking of, as you will soon see. I just wanted to get to spend a nice long and cozy evening with my girlfriend. However, embarrassed and in agony, I had to tell her the truth. And it made me want to cry.

“I would so love to do this. I honestly really really would. But I can’t.”

“Oh? No? Why not?”

Jesus, didn’t I hate to have to let her in on this dark secret of my crummy little life. I mean, I was an eighth-grader already, practically a grown up for crying out loud, right?

“Because my mom will never consent to it.”

(long pause) “No? Your mom? Why not?”

“Because… well… you know…” Oh, I really so didn’t want to have that conversation.

(long pause) “Uhmmm… no. I don’t.”

I wanted to die of shame right there. It took a while for her to drag it out of me, but finally, and painfully, I managed to choke it out that… Ma didn’t “like” the prospects of… well, you know, what could, and definitely would in her mind, happen any time a boy and girl were left alone together. There. The secret was out. I was a namby-pamby Momma’s boy!

I wanted to run away and hide. And puke.

“I’ll tell you what,” she surprisingly said, still sounding cheerful and totally undeterred. “I’ll have my mom talk to your mom. My mom can talk anybody into anything.” And knowing her free-wheeling, fun-loving, mom, I didn’t really doubt that for a second. However…

“Sure. Any mom but my mom, that is. See, my mom’s never gonna buy it. So please. Don’t, OK? There’s no point. Just… don’t have her do that. Alright? It’ll just make a lot of grief for me.”

Of course it won’t. How could it?”

(Oh, let me count the ways.)

I was feeling about as small a gnat. And so very sad for myself! Because truth? I could see the writing on the wall. This little complication with Ma could mushroom out of control and spell the end of our little boyfriend/girlfriend thing we had going. And that’d just about do me in.

Still, no matter what, I couldn’t talk her out of having her mom call mine. So that meant that if I knew what was good for me, I had to face Ma right up front and give her the heads up about the soon-to-come phone call. And what it was gonna be about.

Ever hear the expression ‘mad as a wet hen’?

“Well, that’s just not gonna happen, I can tell you that right now! I’d never say yes to something like THAT! That would be just asking for trouble!”

This is how I knew it would go. After all, this was the woman who’d made Denny and I pledge that WE’D never get any girl pregnant… right after some high school girl who lived four houses up the street from us got knocked up.

(And me? Why yes sir, I took that oath with all the solemnity of saluting the American flag! Because I was a good little soldier. (Of course, being only six at the time, I had no frickin’ idea whatsoever what the hell it was I was pledging not to do.)

Yes, this was the woman who angrily sent me (at about the same age) to bed early one evening for interrupting dinner simply by asking out of curiosity, “Say, just what is sex anyway?”

This was the woman who would never let us go to the movies on Sundays.

This was the woman who refused to let us play with cap guns on Sundays.

In short, this was the woman who really made me despise Sundays! God, my life sucked! I mean, what was I? A damn eighth-grade little Momma’s boy, that’s what!

And of course the call did happen. And I spy-listened to it from the next room. Man, that was one long, long phone call. And I really wasn’t liking what I was overhearing of the debate on our end. But…

After she’d put the receiver back in its cradle, she called me out to the kitchen. Still the mad old wet hen, she informed me that OK, I could do what was being asked of me, but on one condition and one condition only. That being… that there would have to be a third person present with Sandra (Dee) and me at all times.

“You’re actually saying it’s… it’s OK? That I can go?”

“Well, it’s not what I want! At ALL! But…”

I was thunderstruck! So it was true then? There really was a Santa Claus? But boy, she was still pissed.

“But still… you’re saying… it’s OK though…?”

“Not OK at all! Not with me. And I really don’t appreciate being browbeat about MY own children by someone outside this family!“

Happily, it turned out Sandra (Dee’s) mom had already cemented the deal with the promise that my girlfriend’s best friend Wendy would be spending the night at their house. So… there you were.

“But… you listen to ME, Mister. There had better not be any… trouble resulting from this! Or I don’t know what!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So there I ended up that Saturday night, sitting on the living room floor, surrounded by a ton of toys, and just having a ball with Sandra (Dee’s) baby brother. I loved him. It was a great evening we had going there. The TV was on and I was watching some of that too while rolling around on the floor with the little tyke. Couldn’t ask for a more fun night.

But then I was told it was finally time. Time for the little fella to hit the hay. Aw. That made me feel sad, because he and I were having so much fun. But… what were you gonna do? So Wendy, our third-wheel-in-residence, told us not to worry, that she’d take him upstairs. And up and away they went. So Sandra (Dee) and I were going to get some alone time. So we huddled together, cuddling on the couch.

Cuddling was such a new and welcomed step in my boyfriend-skills evolution. Another check-off on the old bucket list. And basically, it was just like being on a movie date. I had my arm around her, and we put our heads together and just watched whatever was going on, on the TV. And let me tell you: I was in seventh heaven right there! I was clam-happy! That was the life. What I’d been wanting and waiting for all along.

A real girlfriend.

At some point later, however, it occurred to me that we hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Wendy, “our official babysitter.” One TV program had just ended, and another was starting up. The time was ticking right along.

Maybe Wendy’d gone to bed upstairs early. My curfew for that evening was 10:00. And there was still most of an hour left. I was glad. I was in no hurry to go home, that was for sure. I was having too good a time.

But then all of a sudden down the stairs came Wendy. She walked to the center of the living room and stopped right there before us, blocking our view of the TV. And she continued standing there.

I thought to myself, That’s odd. And it felt like she was… studying us… at least, to me it did. Standing there with her feet shoulder-width apart and her little doubled-up fists pressed into her hips, looking at us like some army little drill sergeant. I mean, why was her expression so serious… and maybe a little pouty? It felt like she was judging us or something. Like she was sizing us up, and what she was seeing was seemingly not meeting with her approval.

“What?” I asked her, thinking, UH-oh. Does she feel we’re being rude, cuddling as we are right in front of her? But my question just hung there in the air, getting no response.

On the other hand, I’d suddenly gotten this eerie feeling that there was some form of communication going on in that room that didn’t include me. I mean, first Wendy stared right at me. Then her stare swung over to Sandra (Dee). And her expression slowly morphed into a stern, but puzzled, look. It was giving me the distinct impression that Wendy was… soliciting a confirmation about something, but what?

And that’s when I felt my girlfriend hunch her shoulders beneath my arm, the way somebody does when they’re silently signaling, I dunno. Don’t ask me…

Wendy was shaking her head now. She seemed a bit exasperated by something.

“What?” I demanded a second time.

She sighed, did Wendy. And then, lamenting “Oh, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy!” in one of those What am I ever gonna DO with you? tones of voice, came over and plunked herself right down beside me on that couch! You wanna talk about confusing?

I thought to myself, I don’t have a clue what she’s up to, but at least she’s not blocking the TV anymore. But before I could even begin to get back into the television program, I felt Wendy elbow me right in the ribs, hard.

“Hey! EXCUSE me?” I said. That got no response. But then, after a moment, I felt her ramming me hard with her shoulder like she was trying to bulldoze me into my girlfriend seated on the other side.

“Hey! What… What’re you DOING?!” Me, eyeballing her now. “What’s going on?”

No answer. She was looking straight back at me, shaking her head and rolling her eyes, like I was some object to be pitied. By then, any thoughts of my girlfriend or the TV show had momentarily flown right out the window.

All at once, Wendy decided to sit straight up. No more bulldozing her bony shoulder into mine. And then the weirdest thing happened. Something that I totally could not understand at all. It seemed Twilight Zone-ish.

She reached down, took my wrist, and lifted up my left hand.

I was at a loss. I was like, “Uhhmmmm?” Then she softly clamped both of her hands, like a bracelet, around my wrist. And just… held my wrist tight.

NOTE: I can think of so many song lyrics that can perfectly express what I was feeling right then. Buffalo Springfield’s “There’s something happening here. But what it is ain’t exactly clear.” Or Bob Dylan’s “You know something’s happenin’, but you don’t know what it is… DO you, Mr. Jones.”

And then, slowly, gently, she began guiding my left hand straight across my chest.

“Uhhh… What’re you doing, Wendy?”

No answer. I didn’t feel comfortable with what was going on, so I began resisting. But jeez, she was stronger than I’d have imagined. For a moment, I found myself losing the arm-wrestling contest, or whatever it was we were having! Mostly because the whole sudden turn of events had taken me so completely by surprise. But the worst thing? I honestly had no frickin’ idea just where exactly my hand was being driven to, but… oh jeez, suddenly I did know, sort of: the destination appeared to be somewhere between Sandra (Dee’s) lap… and her chin! And the thought of that just scared the bejesus out of me!

“Hey, whoa! Whoa whoa WHOA! What’re ya…?” I hit the brakes and managed to yank my arm back. Thankfully, my hand fell safely into my lap. Oddly, I felt them both sort of ‘slump‘ beside me at the same time.

But I did not slump. In fact, my whole body remained hypercautiously coiled! I was a little man of steel! Stunned. Confused. Very very confused. Like, What the heck just happened here? And I felt myself grinning idiotically hard! A forced grin. Like… maybe I just hadn’t got the joke yet. In a moment, maybe they’d explain it all to me, and we’d all have a good laugh over it.

Maybe. But the three of us just sat there now in total silence. All of us just kinda vacantly staring down at our knees. Me wondering, Isn’t anyone gonna say something?

And then someone did. I heard my Sandra (Dee) softly say, “Never mind, Wendy.”

What? I thought to myself, ‘Never MIND??? Never mind WHAT?!’ But apparently, nobody was planning on divulging anything anytime soon. So, we all just continued sitting quietly for another little while. In a trance. Not moving for a bit.

Me, waiting…

Finally, Wendy turned to look at me and, with a frown, broke the silence. “Well, you’re a lot of fun, aren’tcha!” Then she got up off the couch and disappeared off into the kitchen.

Hmmmm…?

So I looked over to Sandra (Dee) to see if she had anything to offer by way of explanation. But all she did was turn to me with a blank look and say, “Ooops, I just heard the baby crying upstairs. I’d better go up there and check on him. I might be a while.”

“I didn’t hear him.”

“Yeah. But I did.”

“Oh. OK.”

“Yeah. He probably needs his diaper changed, you know?”

“Oh. Sure. I see.”

And no sooner than I said, “I see,” I actually was… beginning to see!

I was beginning the mathematical process of putting 2 plus 2 together. And oh boy, when the unexpected sum of 4 clicked slowly up into the display of my very-slow calculator brain… I was mortified!

My face was burning! Because I had just been slapped in the face with one very harsh reality! No wonder I’d been getting along so famously with Sandra (Dee’s) baby brother! Because compared to Sandra (Dee) and Wendy, I was a toddler myself!

I wanted to slap myself in the forehead! How could I ever have been so THICK?! There I’d been, all along, little virgin-brain me, imagining that all that wonderful hugging and cuddling was what people on TV or in the movies meant when they talked about getting to second base!

Second base? I wasn’t even the bat boy, for crying out loud! I had ZERO experience in the dating game, hadn’t I!

I didn’t belong in the dating game, did I!

God, no wonder, Wendy’s eye-rolls!

I mean, OK… I guessed they must’ve been thinking from the start that… you know… because I was a year older than them…

Hell, in reality? They were twenty years older than me! Apparently. At least!

Aw jeez, I’d just spent the better part of the night like a lamb in the den of a couple of she-wolves! And them hoping all along that I was really the big, bad wolf that they’d believed I was in sheep’s clothing…?

I was so embarrassed!

But still… it had felt so warm and nice, all that hugging and cuddling…

I mean, she must’ve felt at least some of that too… hadn’t she?

But whatever would’ve happened if I hadn’t resisted? I mean if I’d just let it go? How far would it have…?

Jesus. I wasn’t ready for this. My head was spinning.

You know what you want to do when something embarrassing like this befalls you? Run! And hide! You just wanna run away and hide! For months maybe!

So I forced a sickly smile. “You know… actually, it’s getting pretty close to my curfew. So… I mean, I guess I might as well take off now anyway.”

“Oh. OK. Sure then,” she said flatly.

“Uhmmm… I had a great time,” I told her.

“Huh?” she said, and yawned. “Oh. Yeah. Me too.”

Not so very convincing. So I did leave. Or… escaped, I guess. And began the long walk home. There was so much to think about…

But anyway. That’s the way the evening and the relationship ended.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

OK. First of all, allow me to freely admit that I dragged myself home that night feeling like a freak. And my pity-party dragged on for the next couple of weeks. I couldn’t see any humor whatsoever in it back then. Unlike today.

Today, this story brings me a big chuckle. It’s just one of those typical Rites of Passage stories that we get to look back on many years later from an entirely different perspective.

And, funny thing— while I was tapping out this memory here on my PC, a funny thought occurred to me. See, all of a sudden my mind had just made this spontaneous warp-drive-jump to something from an entirely different time, dimension, and universe. To something that connects to what had befallen me in this story. Something I’d only seen once, but it was quite unforgettable. About how “dumb” (“dumb” being the key word here) I had been for the past couple of weeks, right up until that evening.

A scene from a movie. The final scene actually. I’ve included the YouTube clip of it below for you to watch. And PLEASE. Humor me. Really. Watch this clip, I beg of you. Even though you may have seen it before. It only lasts for a minute and a half. It’ll be fun for you to see it again. I’m pretty sure you’ll get a kick out of getting the joke.

And with that, let me just say Thank you. For reading.

Adios. For now…

—Tom

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ANIMAL HOUSE

Leading up to the summer of ’66, summers were just… summers— one hot and sweaty and dirty summer job after another. But in ‘66, my tiny resumé took a wide detour around the usual drudgery. I assumed the operation of the Sebec Lake Municipal Beach Concession located just five miles north of my hometown of Dover-Foxcroft. And one of the immediate benefits for me was the temperature-inversion. No more nearly passing out in the 101^o oven of the Guilford Woolen Mill spinning room. No more getting sunburned behind the oily exhaust of a Briggs & Stratton, rock-spitting cemetery lawn mower.

Sure, sometimes it did get baking-hot inside that cinder-block beach concession stand, but (a) there was often at least a bit of a cool breeze that you could feel coming in off the lake if you stuck your head out the concession’s screened take-out windows far enough to feel it; (b) and hey, check out the work uniform dress code: swim trunks, tee shirt (or not), and flip-flops; and (c) with nothing more than a “Hey guys, I’ll be right back in a jiff,” I could just sprint down over the burning sand and plunge down into the cold blue water for a quick cool-off.

No, I certainly did not miss those hot, long-sleeve and long-pants khakis of summers previous.

In so many ways the summer of ‘66 was the most upbeat summer for me ever, one of those old Nat King Cole “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer! Those days of soda, and pretzels, and beer!” You had the growls of those outboard motors buzzing the lake out there with water-skiers in tow. You had Coppertone and Off wafting in the breeze. And you had me, young, tan, and handsome to boot (no comments allowed at this time, thanks). In tip-top physical shape.

Now a “proprietor” of a business. An “employer” of employees. I mean, how respectable was that! And finally, getting to live in that gorgeous and luxurious all-expenses-paid, on-the-waterfront cottage.

In the meantime though, it still was a job, right along with my part-time Esso station gig. And despite all the obvious benefits, there turned out to be a lot more work and responsibilities to running the Concession than I’d imagined. But whatever it is you’re doing, you get used to it.

And I was getting used to it fast.

One blazing hot afternoon, I left the Concession and trotted down toward the water for that much-needed, cooling-off splash-dash. Then, wading back in toward the sand, however, I stopped short. Because there was a middle-aged man standing just off to my left, just standing-in-place knee-deep in the shallow water. He was wearing swim trunks and an anomalous, wrinkly-rumpled, long-sleeved white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. A live cigarette butt crimped between his index and middle finger was smoldering.

The weirdo from Lanpher’s Drug!

And the thing was, he was having this ‘conversation’ with a couple of confused-looking, yardstick-tall boys standing hip-deep before him. Curious and more than a little disturbed, I veered left and sloshed toward shore in a path close enough to brush elbows with the guy, easily close enough to hear what he was saying:

“No no no, I said my father was the moose. Not my mother. She was the owl.”

What?! What kind of a conversation was that?! What was going on there? (Point in fact. This is exactly what I heard him saying to them. I swear. Those three sentences burned themselves indelibly into my memory.) And I sure didn’t like the sound of it. But I was as confused by it, as much as stunned. I mean, what the hell was I supposed with that!? I had no idea. Was anybody supposed to do with it? Who knew? Could be an innocent enough conversation, I supposed. But it didn’t sound like it.

I scanned all around the throngs beached on their blankets and towels to see if I might spot anyone who looked like possibly concerned parents staring out at this little scene. But no, there were just too many people. I couldn’t spot anyone, so I picked my way back up the beach to the concession.

I had a high school kid working the windows with me that day, one Richard Dority. A really cool young man, capable in so many ways of helping me out. So I pointed out the little odd-ball, unsettling conversation going on down there in the water.

“Oh. Shit. That guy!” he said.

“What, you know him?”

“No. I don’t know him. Know of him. Only cause he’s been hanging out and spookin’ everybody here at the beach. He’s got serious screws loose.”

“He’s also been spooking everybody back in town. Especially at Lanpher’s.”

“I think he’s got a camp around here somewhere. He’s started showin’ up here regular last week.”

“Tell you what. We’re kinda quiet for the moment. Why don’t you take a break. Say a half hour or so. Go down there and see what you can find out. Well, unless you see me getting mobbed up here all of a sudden. But you know, check him out for a bit. Actually, there’s such a crowd all around’em right now, I don’t think there’s really anything to worry about. Safety in numbers an all that. But you might even maybe butt in and strike up a friendly little conversation with the two kids, you know? Just to let him know somebody’s paying attention to what’s going on.”

“Ooh. OK. Here I go.” Everything was an adventure to him. “Goin’ deep undercover here.” And grinning, off he went.

So that was it, then. The Man was here, eh? So. We had trouble. Right here in River City. And that starts with a ‘T’ and that…

But in the meantime, I just went on cruising forward through the summer, seeing myself in a different movie. Me as Troy Donahue in A Summer Place, with Phyllis as my Hollywood Sandra Dee co-star.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Business was pretty good that summer. We were swamped with business on those really hot, picture-book-perfect summer days. And and even on the overcast drizzling days, we surprisingly did some business. But. Downpours and thunder? We shut down.

Throughout June and July, because of our cigarette Smoking Man’s presence, his name came up periodically in conversation. (Though I know his name well, for purposes of common decency I’m not using it in this post. Even after 50+ years, chances are that some of his family might still live in the area.) But rumor had it he was sometimes hanging out in our very dimly lit men’s changing room, waiting behind the opening door for people coming in to towel off and change. And when their eyes had adjusted to the lack of light enough that they’d spot him in there with them, his signature response was always something like, “No, it’s alright. Don’t mind me…”

Yeah. That raised some feathers.

The police had been notified and they’d spoken with him and warned him to desist. Rumor had it he’d gotten beat up pretty badly one night over at the roller rink. Apparently, he’d said something one hot-blooded young man found offensive. I was just glad I hadn’t witnessed that.

So there was that stuff going on intermittently. But mostly, by the time the first two weeks of July had slipped behind us in the rear view mirror, I put all that out of mind. For me, it was all about the impending wedding closing in. That was all I could think about.

Honestly though, I was as nervous as the proverbial cat with the long tail in a room full of rocking chairs. Ours had been a tumultuous relationship anyway. I know we were both passionately head-over-heels crazy in love with each other, but… we did have a history of lots of lovers’ spats. And that was worrying me big-time in the three days before the wedding. Why?

Because there were a bunch of relatively wild yahoos hanging out on the beach that week (more acquaintances of mine rather than actual friends), who were claiming they were going to throw me a bachelor party. Not Would you like to have a bachelor party? but You are going to have a bachelor party. I didn’t like the sound of that. A frigging bachelor party was the last thing in the world I needed right then. I mean, hell, if Phyl caught wind that I was having a quote-unquote bachelor party on the very night before our wedding, I just knew what she’d be imagining: a drunken bash with a stripper rising up out of a cake if not worse!

And I just couldn’t have that! (a) I wasn’t a wild and crazy guy at all back then anyway, and (b) those party-wanters weren’t even good buddies of mine. Oh, I knew just what they were thinking: A bachelor party’ll give us a great excuse to get blotto. Tom’s got that camp on the beach (“that camp” meaning a place for them to booze it up…), a place our parents will never even guess where we are!).

First of all, I told them no thanks. Didn’t want one.

They said, “But it’s never up to the bachelor though, is it.”

I disagreed and put my foot down. “No. No party, and that’s final.”

They just laughed.

“Not funny,” I told them. “I’m NOT having any party! I don’t want one, and so I’m not having one! So just forget it. And like I said, that’s final. End of story!”

But these guys were crazy, and I knew it. They wanted a place to drink and that was all there was to it. The legal drinking age in the state was 21. Hell, I’d just turned 20 myself, and they were younger than me. And I’m sure they couldn’t care less if I were even there to host their little speakeasy or not. To them, the ‘bachelor’ in this scenario was immaterial. A party’s a party, right? Who even cares if there’s a bachelor or even a host there?

The thought of the whole thing made me sick to my stomach. What would Phyl think? How would she react if she found out?

I didn’t, however, really have a lot of time to dwell on it. There were oodles of wedding details to attend to. The wedding rehearsal. Getting the grange hall reception squared away. Picking up my tux. Making the Quebec City honeymoon hotel reservations over the phone. Making plans to switch vehicles at the last minute to throw any post-wedding followers off our trail. Etc. Etc.

So at the end of the last day before the wedding, I was totally exhausted by the time I rolled up to the camp around 9:30 that evening. And what’s the first thing I saw? Some yahoo I barely knew elbowing a case of Nastygansett in through the now-jimmied-wide-open-door that I’d left locked earlier.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Something woke me up early the next morning. I blinked open my eyes and found that I was upstairs. In bed. I began to crane my neck around to survey my shadowed surroundings, slant-lighted only by a tiny window situated high up behind my head. First thing I noticed? The sleeping forms seemingly everywhere, all over the floor. Soundly sleeping, snoring bodies. Oh God, I thought to myself. That’s right. The bachelor party.

First of all, please know this: I hadn’t drunk a single alcoholic drop the night before. It’s not that I wouldn’t liked to have. But by sipping the night away nursing a quart bottle of Moxie, I was basically striving to save my own skin. And what a boring night it had been for me. Watching what could have been my desperately needed, very restful, and contemplative evening quickly deteriorating into madness. And just looking at those little bastards now, I couldn’t get over how they hadn’t even had the courtesy or the frickin’ decency to haul their sad, besotted, little asses back home after they’d ruined not just my night, but perhaps even my future in the process.

Christ, I could just see it in my mind’s eye: the part where the minister says, “If anyone here today knows of any reason why these two should not be wedded in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.” I mean, would Phyllis be the one? The one to turn to me at that point with blood in her jaundiced eyes and shock the entire congregation with her loud “Me! Me! I’ve got a reason!”?

Yes, just look at these little pigs, I was thinking to myself when suddenly… my eyes zeroed in on something that stopped my heart!

Standing upright at the other end of the room, the end that gave way to the crooked little staircase, was a large and menacing dark form! Six feet tall or more and heavy-set! And it was moving around slowly! What the hell was I seeing, moving slowly and furtively among the sleepers, looking down at them! Stopping to (Jesus!) bend right down silently at the waist and lowering its face down to just a couple of inches from each of their faces, examining them and one at a time and then… on to the next!

My first thought was the Cigarette Smoking Man! (Eeek!) But then No, too tall. My next thought? Serial killer! Selecting his first victim!

As my eyes adjusted and re-focused, I could pretty much make out the man’s face. And shit! Nobody I knew! What was a total stranger doing here?! I mean, think of it! There was some man, some giant of a man, somebody I didn’t even know, stalking his victims upstairs in my camp! And we had no phone! We had nothing! And then… horror of horrors!

I watched this fiend place both of his hands firmly down onto the chest of his first prey, right up close to his unsuspecting neck, and I thought, Oh Jesus Christ, here it comes! Here it comes! I didn’t wanna look! But…

This man, I saw then, had grasped two fistfuls of the sleeper’s shirtfront and was hauling his victim up, easily lifting him sound asleep right up, face-to-face, with himself. And I mean Jesus, if looks could kill…

“God damn it, Timmy!” he growled, and gave the boy a manful, wake-up shake. Timmy’s buttoned-up blood-shot eyes were trying to crank their eyelids open. “Do you have any idea just how goddamned worried your mother has been all goddamn night!!!!?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The wedding wasn’t until 1:00. In the meantime, everybody was gone from the camp. I had time to kill, but not the slightest idea what to do with it. All I know is that I just climbed into my old ‘50 Pontiac and drove away.

And much later, by the time my subconscious somehow tractor-beamed me up into my parents’ driveway (where, oh yeah, my tux was waiting inside), all I could remember of that little odyssey was that I’d pulled up at some Shell station somewhere, told’em to filler-up, after which it turned out I’d won $2.00 off on my gas with some little scratch-off-ticket-promotion going they had going.

Stepping out of the car, the thought hit me like a left hook: Jeez! Had Phyllis heard about the stripper coming out of the cake and all yet…?

By the time I had my tuxedo on and was combing my hair in the mirror, I had one of my life’s worst migraine’s going. And I’d get some real humdingers back in those days.

Man, I desperately wanted to rush over to see Phyllis, throw myself at her feet, sob out my confession about the previous night, swear on ten stacks of Bibles I’d done everything possible in my power short of murder to stop the damn thing from happening, and that I hadn’t even had one friggin’…swig of damn beer! But in those days, they were practically psycho about not letting the groom lay eyes on the bride before the ceremony on the day of. Supposed to be bad luck, or something.

I remember sarcastically thinking, Bad luck? Oh gosh, golly, and gee! Wouldn’t I ever hate to have anything as bad as bad luck!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So there I was. 1:05 pm. A sweating lamb to the slaughter, standing at firing-squad-attention in front of the Methodist Church altar with the Best Man and witnesses to my left, bridesmaids to my right. If asked, I would have said, “Yes, I’ll take the blindfold.” I believe it occurred to me at one point that maybe I should just stop worrying about fainting, and perhaps just give in to it.

And then the moment of truth: “The Wedding March” started up. Oh, the migraine!

The ushers swung wide the two entrance doors. The migraine was killing me!

But oh my! There she suddenly was!

A picture of stunning beauty! Knock-out gorgeous!

Her stepfather, Elden, started escorting her up the aisle to ‘give her away.’

If only I could just get a good look at her eyes. Then I’d know. If some fool had blabbed!? Or if she’d not heard about it yet? And if not, would she just end up hearing about it right after the ceremony? And how screwed would I be then? Should I tell her right away?

Or was it already too late?

She was too far away yet to be sure of anything.

Writing this, I’m reminded of the famous short story, “The Lady or the Tiger.”

But the reason for all my unnecessary drama? Me!

I had a such long, long way to go before I was… a real grown up. Even at twenty, I was a still a little kid at heart. I still thought of life in terms of all the movies I’d grown up watching.

But the truth is, all the unprocessed weight of this gigantic transition happening to me right then and there that very day was crushing. Yes, I was dying to get married. But yes, I was afraid about whether or not I could ever really man up to the new role as… husband. Like my dad was a husband. And had been a husband forever. He who had fought in the war, which made him “a man,” and there I was, just a boy still. He who seemed to know everything about everything. And what did I know? Nothing! Nothing at all about hardly anything!

Dad had been helping me get through my piddling little life every step of the way so far! I mean, what did I know about taxes? What did I know about insurance? Would I really be able to make enough money to pay for college so I could make enough money to live on? Would I make it as a teacher? What if Phyllis got sick? What if I got sick? It was the damn weight of all of it!

And so internally, I was asking myself that afternoon, Do I really think I’m adult enough to drive my wife, Phyllis, all by ourselves all the way to French-speaking Canada with my crummy two little years of high school French? I mean, who did I think I was?

I was suffering a last minute, 1-day nervous breakdown-with-migraine.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But guess what happened.

We went through all the clockwork motions of the ceremony, the exchanging of the vows, the slipping of the wedding ring onto the bride’s finger, performing ‘the old-you-may-kiss-the-bride.’ We actually became (for just a moment) that perfect, little, miniature bride and groom perched on the top tier of the wedding cake.

And then in a daze I drove us to the waiting grange hall reception, where we performed the cake-in-the-face, the garter thing, the tossing of the bouquet, all of it… also like clockwork.

After which, Mrs. Lyford and I sped away in our clunky, now-grotesquely festooned, old ‘50 Pontiac; ditched ‘The Grey Ghost’ in my parents’ driveway; hopped into my dad’s waiting, brand new, pre-luggage-loaded van…

and with Phyllis wearing the cutest, most prim and stunning little travel outfit imaginable… I drove my new, day #1 wife across the border to Canada.

And then, before we knew it, suddenly day #1 had already become day #2. And then day #2 became the next day. And the rest is (our) history.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And what an unforgettable, happy little adventure Quebec City and Saint George turned out to be!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We returned to our little hometown after the honeymoon as man and wife. We resumed our jobs, Phyl at the pharmacy, me at the Esso station, and the both of us manning the concession. We loved our crooked little honeymoon shack on the beach.

However, then reality had to go and stick its nose back in.

One morning at somewhere around 5:00 am, we were abruptly awakened by someone’s loud voice outside. It was a man’s voice, and whoever he was, it sounded oddly like he was making some sort of official announcement or proclamation to a large audience. And it was coming from the little diving-dock on the beach right outside, out in front of the camp:

“NAME?” (The man announces his name)

“AGE?” (The man announces his age)

“BIRTHPLACE?” (The man announces where he was born)

The man was giving the world his resumé, whether the world wanted it or not! We poked our heads out the door, and… what the hell? There he was. Our rumpled Cigarette Smoking Man. Apparently as mad as a hatter.

“CURRENT ADDRESS?“ (The man informs the world at large of his mailing address in Sangerville.)

“EDUCATION?” (And down he goes through the list, beginning with his primary school)

Et cetera. Et cetera.

And worst of all, after a fifteen-minute-long recitation, he broke into song:

“Beautiful dreamer… Wake unto me,

Starlight and dew drops are waiting for thee…

Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,

Lulled by the moonlight have all passed away…”

Et cetera.

These days, decades later, whenever that song happens to pop up on the radio or in the backdrop of some movie, Phyl and I pause, turn, look at each other eye-to-eye (spooked a little), and just know that we are both of us together back there once again, in that camp, gawking out the door at the sweaty little man with the smoldering cancer stick, standing there on that dock, staring defiantly into the rising sun and confirming beyond any doubt his existence on this planet, to God and anyone else he imagined was listening and hanging on his every word. I mean, even when someone good like Roy Orbison is the one singing it!

And see, this wasn’t a one-off. This was something that happened… let’s just say, a little too often.

But you know what? This man turned out to be, for us anyway, only a nuisance, basically. A Boo Radley that I feared and worried about at all times, but nothing ever came of it. I was still just young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, and was easily frightened.

Today we all know so much more about mental illness, enough so that I look back on this poor guy with empathy.

But anyway, it turned out that this man, this unfortunately rather disturbed little man, was to become a part of our lives for the remainder of that summer. The summer that was both christened and baptized by the dunking of a high-speed, getaway-wannabe car in the waters of Sebec Lake. The summer of our very first “home,” the beautiful and rent-free honeymoon cottage. The summer of a cleaner and much more enjoyable part-time employment for me. The summer of The Attack of the Invasive “Bachelor Party” and its nothing-burger after-effects. The summer of our wedding, and the honeymoon trip to Quebec City (which felt to us country bumpkins like…well, Paris). And finally, the summer soundtracked by ‘our song,’ “Beautiful Dreamer.”

And when the summer of ‘66 fizzled out at the end, Phyllis and I packed our bags and headed off to our second of many homes to come, the College Apartments in Farmington, Maine. And to our life-long adventure together with all its joys, all its painful twists and turns, and finally its blessed happy-ever-after. Leaving the Cigarette Smoking Man to Dover-Foxcroft…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You know, as I’ve been working on this episode over the last week, I’ve been re-hashing-over all these memories with my bride of 57 years, 58 years this coming July 30^th. And I was trying to impress on her, yet once again, just how heavily that dumbass, so-called “bachelor party” had weighed on me during those final sweaty hours leading up to our wedding ceremony. And once again, she laughed it off and re-reminded me that no, she’d never even had a clue about that. And that any look of serious concern I’d spotted in her eyes that morning was pretty likely only that she, like me, was also reeling a bit under the momentousness of the big steps she was undertaking in her life.

And you know what.

Phyllis is still the sweetest little bride ever… (sigh)

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CROOKED MAN, CROOKED HOUSE II: The Cigarette Smoking Man

I will forever remember Lanpher’s Drug Store in the 60’s as our special little oasis/after-school hangout, and that sweet bevy of 30-something ladies who worked the lunch counter as a blessing to us kids. All actual mothers themselves, they felt to us (in our high-school-drama, soap-opera lives) like post-Cub Scout den mothers or something, who were always there to listen and to take us under their comforting, little mother hen wings. And actually, I’m embarrassed to say we felt we were God’s gift to those women (Berle, Del, Marilyn, and Martha) because back then it was all about us, wasn’t it— we were just so interesting, right?

But I mean just kids, and yet we were made to feel welcomed at that long lunch counter to gab our afternoons away, even though we had very little money to spend. Looking back now, I’m seeing it as a kind of young kids’ Cheers bar…

“Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they’re always glad you came…”

Plus, there were always a couple of attractive high school girls hired to work behind the counter as well, one of whom turned out to be my Phyllis (sigh!). And you wanna know what’s a dreamy fantasy for a guy my age back then? Having your cute little soda-jerk girlfriend, the girl you’re gonna marry in a few weeks, fuss over you and bring you the root beer Coke you just ordered. (double sigh!)

But to me at least, the whole place felt like “family.” I spent so much time there, weekends included. I even got to become somewhat of a friend of one of the salesmen who’d show up there every two weeks or so to take the orders for the candy bars, chips, and crackers, etc. needed to keep the soda fountain stocked. Later, I’d be giving him weekly orders to stock the Sebec Lake Beach Concession that was to turn out to be my main summer job in 1966.

Plus there was this one, odd, little, wonderful man, Bob Buzzell, who was as much a part of the scene as we were. I think he must’ve retired early with a disability of some sort, because he was there just about every day. We thought of him as old but, to us back then of course, every adult was “old.”

Bob Buzzell was a character and a half. A cheerful little elf, always entertaining everybody with his corny jokes and cool stories about the past. He was like an uncle to us; everybody loved him. But the one special thing about him that really bowled us kids over (although you’ll likely find it nearly impossible to believe it by looking at him in the photo below), was watching this guy go zipping around the roller rink floor out at the lake on his skates like some teenager. He’d skate fast, he’d skate backwards, he’d spin around in tight circles, and out-skate all the high school kids to shame. Of course he wouldn’t last out there as long as we could, so perhaps he was a little old. But it was a friend, and it was always a joy to watch him.

My whole point here is that, after school, Lanpher’s Drug felt like a little home away from home. It was so very comforting to hang out there with your friends. A place that was just… well, a haven in our little town. A place that was always felt secure and… safe.

Until it didn’t.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One afternoon I strolled in to find the place really packed. All the counter bar stools (OK, soda fountain stools) were taken, and there were even a few kids standing, crowding the seats from behind while they talked it up. The jukebox was playing, so that was a good sign. Normally due to the lack of available quarters among us, it simply sat there silent as a piece of furniture. So apparently somebody had some cash at least. Myself, over time I’d dropped uncountable hard-to-come-by quarters down its slot, mostly to listen to “He’s a Rebel” by The Crystals and The Cheers’ “Black Denim Trousers” over and over again.

But what a crowd that day. I was there only to dally a little with Phyl a bit, so I was feeling pretty impatient while having to wait for a seat. But as I was running my eyes up and down the line of crowded stools, hoping to spot somebody who might be getting ready to give up his seat and leave, my gaze came to a stop on someone who, for some reason, just didn’t seem to rightly belong in that shoulder-to-shoulder, Lanpher’s soda fountain crowd. I’d never seen the guy before. And I was struck right away with an unsettling What’s-Wrong-With-This-Picture? sensation.

For one thing, everybody else was seated back-to to me, facing the counter-length mirror on the back wall. But this guy sat facing my way with his back resting against the counter. But in that crowd wearing jeans, shorts, tee shirts, penny loafers, and sneakers, here sat a man, forty-ish probably (there was a touch of salt-and-pepper gray at his temples), in a white short sleeve dress shirt, slacks, and black shoes.

Cigarette Smoking Man (OK, yeah, I stole *this* one from *The X-Files*)

So there was that. But that was only a small part of the first impression he made on me. Where do I start? His shirt and matted hair was damp with perspiration. With a butt-filled-to-overflowing ash tray on the counter behind him, he was smoking like a fiend, gingerly pinching the last half-inch of a smoldering cigarette between a thumb and forefinger. Though smiling, he was definitely radiating nervousness? So in no way whatsoever was he a part of this young crowd he’d sandwiched himself into? And finally, I’m not sure exactly why, he looked to me like some sweating-like-a-pig Richard Burton.

But then I saw Phyllis, her eyes locked on mine, furtively nodding for me to meet her down at the far end of the counter. She looked uptight. That made me tense up. I made my way down there.

“What’s up?”

“That man’s been here for hours. Just sitting there, sipping on Cokes and smoking his cigarettes. And endlessly playing songs on the jukebox. He’s making us all really nervous back here.”

“Hours? Yikes. So… who is he anyway?”

“That’s just it. We don’t know. Nobody does. He just showed up. But I think something’s… I mean, I don’t know what, but something’s wrong with him. And he smells bad. All sweaty. And he acts funny.”

“Have you told your boss? You probably ought to.”

“Mr. Lanpher’s not in today.”

“Oh great!”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not good.”

“No it really isn’t. So… could you, you know, stick around for a while? I’d really feel better if you’d stay here.”

“Well sure, Phyl. Of course I will!”

Jeez, my beautiful little majorette girlfriend? It was like she was suddenly this… damsel in distress! Like in the movies. My beautiful and demure princess being threatened by the dragon! And she was asking me…imploring me… to be her knight in shining armor?! Her Saint George?

“You got it,” I assured her. “I’m staying right here and keeping an eye on him. For as long as it takes. Till the end of your shift. Don’t you worry. And then I’m walking you home.”

‘You’ll be safe with me,’ a wannabe-gruff voice that sounded more than a little like me growled inside my head. And I say, “wannabe-gruff” because truth is— there was something really off and disturbing about this ‘dragon.’ He was setting off alarms in my gut big-time. I mean, he was a grown man after all, wasn’t he. And what was I? Just a damned frightened kid when you got right down to it. And I knew very well way down deep inside that… hell, I was no fighter! I hated to own it, but I was more a Barney Fife than any Prince Valiant. Which was, of course, one of my darkest and best-kept secrets. And I wanted to keep it that way.

But what’d I do? I pasted on my best Marshall Matt Dillon face, moseyed on over to the jukebox, casually leaned up against it, and began keeping a dark stare focused gun-hard on him. Whenever he happened to look up my way, there was the best hairy eyeball I could muster waiting for him. (Hell, even Barney used to get away with it every once in a while.)

Eventually, a stool right next to him opened up, as the crowd was pretty much thinned out by then. So I nonchalantly stood up, surreptitiously stepped across the aisle, pretended to examine the band-aid display for a minute or two, and then came over and eased myself down onto it.

Man, he did really stink. An overpowering mix of swampy, armpit, sweat-stink a la cologne engulfed me. He was toxic. For a guy who dressed pretty sharp, you’d think he might want to take a shower every now and then, but apparently… no.

So, I braved myself to talk with him a little. As little as possible. Mostly monosyllables. Managed to pry his name out of him. Got him to tell me a few things about himself. Him, being a professor at the UMass Amherst. On a sabbatical leave. Professor of what, I didn’t ask. Currently living in Sangerville, a tiny town about eight miles or so from Dover. But he was really making me nervous so, you know, I didn’t come right out and ask him if he was a pervert or rapist or anything. I cut the conversation short and jockeyed my butt down a few stools for some oxygen and to get closer to my little damsel in distress.

It seemed he’d never leave, although of course he finally did. So yeah. I’d lucked out. Walked her home. Me, the conquering hero…

But after that you’d never know when you strolled in if you’d find him occupying one of Lanpher’s soda fountain stools or not, since he started hanging out there like that a couple or so days a week. And yes, there always hung over him the lingering presence of that undefined, swamp-gassy foreboding. Although there was never sufficient grounds for the management to ask him to leave or anything. I mean, he really wasn’t loitering, was he, not as long as he kept guzzling the Cokes and pumping those sweaty quarters down the throat of that Seeburg jukebox.

But it’s just that there never seemed to be any good reason you could put your finger on for why he preferred to be there, of all places. And then too, things were so different back in the early 60’s. Pretty much all moms were stuck at home throughout the day, trapped in their domestic ‘cages’ of housewife drudgery, while most dads were out there all day somewhere, busy earning a living. So honestly? There were hardly any parents ever shopping the pharmacy aisles during after-school hours to ever eyeball the creep with the kids.

But to us kids, he was just an oddity. One of those local head-scratchers in this crazy old world. And since I didn’t know doodly about much at that point of my life, I simply dismissed it out of hand after a while.

And why wouldn’t I? It was mid-June, 1966, and I was cruising straight ahead into those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. Phyl working the soda fountain. Me pumping gas part-time across the street. And, oh yeah, me just beginning to take on my new Concession job duties at the Sebec Lake Municipal Beach.

We had a lot on our plate that summer.

But of course, more pressing than all of the new changes piling up, the two of us were eyeing our wedding at the end of July. I mean, we had our eyes on the adventure of a lifetime, didn’t we: THE REST OF OUR LIVES! It was all we could think about. Try to imagine our excitement and anticipation.

And hell, even fear! What, you think I wasn’t at least a little terrified, as well? Oh baby, I was! Would I be able to measure up as a husband, as a man? Would I be able to protect my princess? Would I be able to provide enough money? Would I be able to learn all the things that a husband needs to learn?

It was pretty daunting.

So something as odd and inconsequential as Lanpher’s Pharmacy’s stinky cigarette smoking man was totally off my radar.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Until he wasn’t, that is…

Next time: The Strange Summer of ’66.

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THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN… IN A CROOKED LITTLE HOUSE

1966.

The summer we got married.

At the end of July, the 30^th.

I’d just turned 20, Phyllis 18. Just kids really, like a lot of newlyweds. And no, it wasn’t a shotgun wedding. I got married because I was over-the-moon-crazy-in-love with my steady girlfriend of nearly four years. And in love with love itself, of course. Me, the hopeless romantic.

And you know, it’s not like we had any money to speak of. We just didn’t know any better. Phyl had just graduated from high school. And that August I’d be resuming my education as the now-married, man-boy, college junior. But we both had summer part-time jobs.

Her, clerking and soda-jerking over at Lanphers Drug Store and me, still gas-pump-jockeying across the street at Huey Cole’s Esso.

However, I’d also just lucked just out in securing a second additional job that summer, a very competitively-sought-after job in our little town. It was like winning the lottery. The ideal beach bum job.

Running the Municipal Beach Concession for the summer!

Of course when I signed on to that, I had no idea how much of eight-days-a-week work and responsibility it was going to require. Every week re-ordering the Styrofoam cups, paper plates, napkins and paper towels, cigarettes, hotdogs, hamburger, buns, chips and pretzels, sodas, candy bars, ice cream products, pastries, coffee and condiments— you name it. Plus having to show up there at such ungodly early hours some mornings to meet the various delivery trucks in order to get all those ordered goods inside and stored away. To pay the bills. To keep the books. To hire part-time help. And to always be doing those pesky bank runs back into town to keep myself supplied with the necessary stash of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars, and long green for making change.

A helluva lotta work. Especially for me, being one of the laziest little louts you’d ever want to meet back then. But guess what. Even if I had fully and completely realized beforehand just how much slaving away would be required, I still would’ve jumped at the chance to get it. Because the job came with one very unique and delicious perk. One of those offers you just can’t refuse.

It came with a quaint little rent-free camp! Right there smack-dab on the frickin’ beach!

And for me, the guy who’d otherwise have remained trapped and living under his parents’ thumbs at home all summer long? And for three whole months! An answer to a prayer!

Oh, I would be so envied.

And ta-DAH! Here she is. Just feast your eyes:

OK, “quaint” as my chosen adjective is a bit if a stretch. Kinda brings out the ‘bum’ in the expression ‘beach bum,’ doesn’t it. And how about those little luxury ‘yachts’ lying right out there in the front yard. Don’t they just have “poor man’s adventure” written all over them (provided I could scrounge up a couple of oars).

But to me? At that time? With my big-little-kid psyche peeking out through the eyes of my young-adult-looking boy-body? Jackpot! It was like I was finally getting that little “No Girls Allowed” clubhouse I’d dreamed of building back as a 10-year-old! I mean, weren’t the old bargain-basement Shangri-La sugar-plums just a-dancing around in my head.

But yes, that beach was mine, ladies and gentlemen! Day and night.

And then there was one other reason for me to feel happy about that job. Somehow my best friend, Neil Mallett, had always managed to skunk me by falling into so much better, and more desirable, summer jobs than I ever had. For instance one summer he landed two primo jobs. If I remember correctly (and I believe I do), during the daytime he was being paid good money for simply sitting in a chair in some underground Civil Defense bunker, just on the slight, off-chance that some major crisis alert might start blaring out over their Conelrad two-way radio, which of course it never did. So… you know, all I could imagine was him snoozing in some chair over there, and reading paperbacks.

But that was nothing compared to his night-owl job: being paid good money just to sleep, damnit! That’s right, you read that correctly. He was employed to sleep nights over at the Lary Funeral Home.

I’m guessing there must’ve been some regulation or other that required a living, breathing human being to be stationed on the premises at all times, maybe to alert the authorities if one of the corpses suddenly sat up, or perhaps it was to ward off the modern-day body snatchers. Whatever.

But just think how that had been leaving me feeling when there I was out there in the hot sun sweating my life away mowing cemetery lawns, or slaving on the 2:00 to 10:00 second shift (me missing out on prime dating time with my steady girl!) in the hellishly hot Guilford Woolen Mill spinning room, eh?

So anyway… you can perhaps see just how vindicating this might feel— me, suddenly emerging as The Cool Hand Luke of the Beach…?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So of course I moved right in immediately with all the necessities: sleeping bag, pillow and towels from home, stack of paper plates and cups, plastic ware, and my swimming trunks. And oh yeah: stupidly, with a box full of my college textbooks. Why? Oh, only because there was one rough-single-board shelf spiked to one of the walls, and I thought, Jeez, look. There’s a shelf. Oughtta have some books on that shelf. You know, for decor. For looks. (I mean, I wasn’t actually planning on reading any of them or anything.) Duh!

But turns out, the place obviously hadn’t been built by someone with carpenter skills. My shelf had been crudely nailed a bit crookedly to the crooked wall, so the books would slide off and fall to the floor in a heap every half hour or so (including in the middle of the night!).

Turned out the place did have a bed upstairs at least (Yay!) accessible by some rickety, cramped, and crooked little stairs. Also it turned out the place didn’t even have running water. So… consequently it also turned out the place didn’t have a bathroom either, which meant long nocturnal trudges across the cold midnight sand and up a little rise to the public restrooms in the parking lot. Turned out too the place didn’t have a phone jack, which irritatingly meant that to call somebody back in town I’d hafta dig up some coins and trot over to the lone phone booth located next to the concession building.

But guess what. It turned out the place did have electricity, so it wouldn’t be totally like Thoreau’s Walden Pond after all! Wow. That made all the difference in the world.

So yeah. I went to sleep that first night, a barefoot beach bum in his own little bachelor pad, happy as a hobo in an empty boxcar.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I can’t say the job didn’t have its stressful moments (OK, make that hours), but on the whole I was having a very happy summer. It was a social thing for me. I loved gabbing with the customers through the order/take-out windows, many of whom were re-visiting Foxcroft Academy alumni with whom I shared a common past. And then there were the visiting snowbirds from away, many of those with whom I was already acquainted as well. Plus I’d hired a couple of part-time helpers and had developed a good and friendly relationship with them.

But you know what the best thing was? I didn’t have a frickin’ boss! I… was the boss of me! Something I’d never experienced before (and, unfortunately, something I was never to experience again throughout my employable future). Oh yeah, I did currently have a boss at the gas station, but I liked him a lot, as everybody did.

So yeah, my summer of ‘65 was shaping up to be a pretty hunky-dory time. I loved feeling the dead cold sand under my bare feet on a hot night, while checking out the moon reflecting off the water. And my God, the stars! Wow. So unbelievably bright in all that darkness. And then of course there was often the music pumping out across the water from the roller rink off in the distance, soundtracking my halcyon nights. (Of course, I had to be learn to be careful and to watch where I was stepping at night while crossing the beach, as there was often the hazard of disturbing those… night-time lovers out there in the dark. Sitting together on blankets. Lying together on blankets. Not worrying about sunburns.)

And a big plus was having my BFF, Neil Mallett, come out and stay with me some nights. Yes, we’d been buddies since meeting each other for the first time in 9^th grade. Alphabetical order had seen to that: Lyford and Mallett. Since we were both taking the same college prep classes and since every single teacher back then lacked the creativity to try seating their kids in any configuration other than alphabetical order, Neil always ended up sitting right behind me in every class.

He and I had had so many experiences together. High school hijinks. Haying with his family on his farm. Playing our guitars. Double-dating, with his girlfriend-at-the-time being my girlfriend’s best friend. So yeah, the walks and talks we enjoyed together out at the lake felt so very comfortable in the days getting closer and closer to my wedding, after which poor Phyllis would have to join me in the ramshackle hovel I was currently calling home.

Something else: you never knew what crazy little ‘adventure’ might just pop up in your life, living out there next to the water among all the wealthy summer folks. I’ll share one with you right now in this post, and re-cap some of the other weird happenings in my upcoming Part II…

OK, one night, very shortly after I’d moved myself in, one of Neil’s-and-my leisurely night-time strolls got totally upended by something really bizarre. And later, it turned out that this particular little happenchance was really just the harbinger for a string of other unusual happenings waiting in the wings of the weeks to come…

So the road leading down to the Municipal Beach is known as Mile Hill. And as late at night as it was that night, close to midnight, there would be little or no traffic on it. Meaning that our world was deafeningly silent— the only exception being the occasional call of a loon.

Suddenly, however, that silence started getting ripped to shreds by some lone, unexpected racket coming from way up at the top of the hill: some vehicle roaring like a banshee with the pedal to the metal on a speed-limit-45 road, just a-barreling down in the dark like Robert Mitchum with his Ballad of Thunder Road’s revenuers hot on his tails. And gauging by the rising Doppler effect, we realized it would likely be on us in half a minute, or less. What the hell was going on?!

Now here’s the thing. Both Mallett and I well knew the geography all about where we were standing, which happened to be right beside the municipal boat ramp that drops straight down into the lake. Moreover, what was now weighing especially and urgently on our minds right then was the fact that Mile Hill completely dead-ends directly at the top the boat ramp. So of course normally drivers slow right down to make the left turn onto the rustic dirt road that accessed all of the many camps populating the waterfront, or simply to ease into one of the few available boat-ramp parking spaces.

But see, this car was a rogue fourth-of-July-rocket wannabe! Incoming fast! I’m talking Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen’s Hot-Rod-Lincoln”-fast!

Now, we’d sidled ourselves right up next to the boat ramp for a good view, and had just begun gawking expectedly up the road when… whoa-Jesus, here it came! Two demonic headlight-eyes looping ’round the bend and flying straight toward us like the proverbial bat outta hell, leaving us just enough time (say three seconds!) for our bodies to autonomically execute our twin-matador sidesteps! Whew!

Jesus H, but what a sight to behold! The car not plowing down our ramp but launching itself airborne right off the top of the it! (Now there’s an image I’ll never shake for the rest of my life!) And then of course The Big KER-SPLOOSH!– it doing its heavy, grille-first nose-dive like some breached killer whale disappearing back down into an ink-black sea! Only in this case (just for the blink of a second or two) bizarrely illuminating a thirty- or forty-foot arc of Sebec Lake’s floor bed with all its rocks and sand and small boulders off to each side… before buoying back up level on the water’s surface.

It was… magnificent!

After splash-down, the car had boated out quite a few yards but was now just sort of lolling in place out there, taking on water fast with both its front doors now opened, and settling down onto that sandy bottom. It wasn’t deep enough out there for it to sink totally out of sight however.

Its two occupants, after climbing out, were standing out there on either side now, armpit-deep and looking pretty confused and disoriented.

“What the hell were you thinking,” I yelled out to them, the two of us now standing atop the ramp, “barreling down here 70 or 80 miles an hour?”

They both gawked at us for a moment, motionless. Then they looked down and studied their egregious, opened-door car with the water up to the top of the steering wheel. And then back at us. “Where the hell are we?” the driver yelled back. A question that got Neil and I to share a frown at each other for a moment.

“You don’t… know?” Neil asked.

To which the response was, “This is the road to Millinocket isn’t it?”

“Uhmmm… no, not even close.” I said.

“This is the Lake Road,” Neil told them, “which is… well, you know, the road to the lake that you’re standing in at the moment.”

“Christ!” said one of them, hard to tell which one in the dark. “Well, I mean, the friggin’ sign said Millinocket. Comin’ through Dover, the signs… both of ’em… definitely both of ’em said Millinocket!”

“Oh, OK. Now I see what you did. You just missed the third sign. The one just before the post office. Would’ve been a right-pointing arrow. With Milo and Millinocket on it. You missed that one. And you were already on the Lake Road to begin with…”

“Yeah, and at your speed, it’d be easy to miss,” Neil said.

“So, you guys just gonna stand there all night?” I asked. “Don’t you wanna come in out of the water or anything?”

They did. They started wading in toward us. “Jesus, we gotta get this car the hell outta here! Hey, can you guys help us? You got a truck? With a chain, maybe?”

“No. But I do have a ‘50 Pontiac. With a straight-eight under the hood and a lot of power. But no chain. All I got’s a nylon rope.”

“That’ll work. Got get it.”

“No. It won’t. Rope’s too thin. It’ll just snap.”

“Better than nuthin’. C’mon, man. We gotta at least try!” They were pretty desperate. “We gotta get these wheels back on the road. Now! Please. You gotta give us a hand!”

I was actually starting to think about it. But by then I’d noticed two things about our guys. The first being that they were obviously drunk, big-time. That was obvious. No surprise. The second, that their faces now oddly seemed to be flickering on-and-off, blue. Took me a second to square that in my mind. But of course it was a patrol car having just cruised ’round the bend and slicing up the whole night with its blue strobes flashing.

So… yeah, this had been one of them high-speed chases you hear about. In a few more seconds, the cops had pulled in right behind us. “Well, I could try.” I said. “But the boys in blue here?”

“Oh… fuck!”

“Yeah. They’ll get your car towed right out of there in a jiffy.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Oh well. It was just one of those odd but unforgettable moments like so many others that have inserted themselves into my life every now and again. Oh yes, my mind has so many such mini-‘adventures’ like this tucked away, little vignettes that have tended to sprinkle a little added spice into my life from time to time.

So Neil and I answered the few questions asked of us by the cops, and then we got to watch our out-of-town ‘visitors’ get handcuffed and escorted to the rear door of the waiting patrol car. But it was really getting late, so we didn’t hang around to wait for the tow truck to show up and haul the vehicle back out and onto dry land. We were tired.

And so off we went, strolling ourselves back across the cold sand in the dark, back toward my recent little home away from home.

It had been an interesting evening. To say the least. We both marveled over what it must have been like, barreling down that long hill shitfaced at such a high speed and then all of a sudden: WHAM!

I mean, try to imagine it! You find yourself unexpectedly diving nose-first while witnessing an inexplicable lake opening itself right up in your headlights like Moses’ parting Red Sea, and giving you a surreal and stunning glass-bottom-boat, freeze-frame flash of an unexpected lake floor!.

What a night. A night to remember. For them and us. But especially them.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Looking back on it now, I kinda picture that little happening as the opening scene of some 1960’s beach-party-movie. Or, better and more realistically still, the once Perfect and Proper Ceremonial Christening (like the bottle of champagne shattered across the bow of a new ship) that it was, of the beginning of my new life as the summer beach bum, with that unimaginable string of even more abnormalities that were waiting for me in the wings of the weeks to come…

I mean “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.” But can you say ‘the bachelor-party-from-hell?‘ Can you say ‘the mental patient at the door?‘ See you in Part II…?

home

I, JUKE BOX (Please play me…)

People say you are what you eat. I say you’re what you consume (just my short way of saying you are what you eat, what you read, what you watch, what you listen to, and whatever you experience). Because anything and everything that crawls its way into, and gets processed by, your brain becomes a part of you, after which your outlook is never quite the same. Because the ever-growing sum-total of your experience both alters and continuously filters the way you perceive and understand the world you’re living in.

(The above wisdom , courtesy of my vast and venerable 77-years of life experience on the planet, and… you’re welcome.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now, here it is, let’s begin:

Music has always had its way with me. Has practically owned me. All my life. Not that that’s a bad thing. Probably because I was born into a household with the kitchen radio playing pretty much non-stop, its rhythms and vocals rocking me in the crib as soon as I was brought home from the maternity ward. Likely even before that, as I suspect I was grooving to WABI am’s top 40 while still in Mom’s buffered-but-not-totally-soundproofed womb.

And as a side-effect, I’ve developed this condition I call Juke Box Brain Syndrome (JBBS). It’s this often annoying (just ask my wife) tic whereby any random word or phrase spoken in any random conversation I’m having (with you or anyone else) just might act as a trigger, very much like a quarter dropping down the slot of some back-to-the-60’s juke box to play a song. But instead… it’s me. I am that ‘juke box.’ And I have no control over the trigger.

Typical Example: So we’re barreling down I-95, Phyllis driving and pushing 75 in a 70 zone like everybody else when suddenly some car rockets past us in the passing lane! Phyl exclaims, “Whoa! That guy’s gotta be doing 85, 90, 95 miles per hour, if not a hundred!” And then, click!

See, that’s the ‘quarter’ dropping into me, the ‘juke box’ and then, me, bowing to something like a post-hypnotic suggestion, I obediently sing (you could almost say ‘play’) a couple of lines from a song. Weirdly, the song this time turnd out to be from one of those little, yellow, plastic, 78 rpm records I had as a kid back in the 1950s. It’s titled, “The Taxi That Hurried”:

“This is the way he likes to drive, 70, 80, 95…

fast as fire engines go, compared to taxis they are slow.”

Now yes, it’s true, a couple of lines from Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” would have much been less annoying.

But see, it’s never up to me. I don’t consciously choose the songs. They just come of their own accord, from the song vault somewhere in my decades-long memory.

Later in the day, in some other conversation, some other word is apt to bring up a line or two from Leonard Cohen, Doris Day, The Beatles, Dolly Parton, Tom Jones, or ABBA. Who knows? It’s like I have Song-Lyrics Tourette Syndrome. And oh, I know… so many many songs. Songs from prctically all genres. (Well except for gospel. And rap. And hip hop. I guess I’m too old for hip hop and rap, being a curmudgeon now. You know– today, having been born in the mid-1940s is like having come from another planet.)

(By the way, I can’t help being hung up on wondering if I’m the only one on the planet suffering from JBBS. I mean, surely there must be others. So please. Let me know in the comments if you, or anyone else you know, also suffers from JBBS. I will appreciate it.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So my CD shelf and five computers and cellphone and brain are brimming, bursting at the seams with my lifelong music collection. But fortunately, this go-to jukebox in my head has saved my sanity so many times. The songs have acted as everything from my prozac (for when I’ve been down and depressed) to my much-needed comedy channel, laughter being the best medicine. My mental health owes so much it to this affliction.

And so what I would like to do here… no, what I’m going to do here…is share with you a few of the songs from my personal comedy vault that have often tickled my fancy and pasted a silly smile on my mug over the years, despite me.

So consider this a free, unrequested playlist offered from my JBB to your brain, a sample JBB pot pourri, if you will. I have no guarantee that you’ll listen in, (hope you do give it a shot) but if you do… you’ll know something about why I’ve adopted this first one, “I’m Different” by Randy Newman, as my personal theme song.

(I’m including the lyrics so you can follow along.)

“I’M DIFFERENT”

“I’m Different “

“I’M DIFFERENT” by Randy Newman

I’m different and I don’t care who knows it
Somethin’ about me’s not the same, yeah
I’m different and that’s how it goes
Ain’t gonna play your goddamn game

Got a different way a walkin’

I got a different kind of smile

I got a different way a talkin’

drives the women kind of wild (… kind of wild)

He’s different and he don’t care who knows it
Somethin’ about him it’s not the same
He’s different and that’s how it goes
And he’s not gonna play your gosh darn game

I ain’t sayin’ I’m better than you are

But maybe I am

I only know that when I look in the mirror

I like the man (We like the man)

I’m different and I don’t care who knows it
Somethin’ about me’s not the same
I’m different and that’s how it goes
Ain’t gonna play your goddamn game

When I walk down the street in the mornin’
Blue birds are singin’ in the tall oak tree
They sing a little song for the people

And they sing a little song for me (La-la-la-la) (Thanks, fellas)

(He’s different and he don’t care who knows it
Somethin’ about him’s not the same
He’s different and that’s how it goes
Ain’t gonna play your gosh darn game)

I’m different and I don’t care who knows it
Somethin’ about me’s not the same
I’m different and that’s how it goes
Ain’t gonna play no boss man’s game

I can’t tell you how many people over my lifetime have informed me that I’m “different.”And each and every time I heartily thank them.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now, I spent 34 years here in this state of Maine enduring life as a career high school English teacher. And as you might imagine, getting and keeping the attention of the typical high school English student for 50 minutes every day is no easy task. It takes a magician, if you really want to know the truth. However, early on I discovered the music really doth have “charms to soothe the savage breast.” (-William Congreve [1670-1929] {whoever the hell he was}).

So now, here’s where being ‘different’ can pay off. Ever since my Mad Magazine-reading early childhood, I’ve been attracted to some pretty bizarre novelty songs, many of which came were played weekly on something called The Doctor Demento Show on the radio. I found Doctor D’s playlists a frickin’ gold mine for stuff that could really catch your typical high school student off guard.

And wheneveer I found myself bogged down trying to keep them awake while trying to teach what a metaphor is… Johnny Cash stepped right up to the plate:

“FLUSHED FROM THE BATHROOM OF YOUR HEART”

From the backdoor of your life you swept me out dear
In the bread line of your dreams I lost my place
At the table of your love I got the brush off
At the Indianapolis of your heart I lost the race

I’ve been washed down the sink of your conscience
In the theater of your love I lost my part
And now you say you’ve got me out of your conscience
I’ve been flushed from the bathroom of your heart

In the garbage disposal of your dreams I’ve been ground up dear

On the river of your plans I’m up the creek
Up the elevator of your future I’ve been shafted
On the calendar of your events I’m last week

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As a teacher, I assigned the kids a lot of creative writing, which I guess is what I loved teaching the most. Usually every year I would have my kids write an original short story. This would include employing the basics of the short story, such as CONCRETE DETAIL, CHARACTER SKETCH, PLOT, CONFLICT, COMPLICATIONS, CLIMAX, etc.

In the early stages of the project, I watched kids struggling with not enough detail or too much detail that was unrelated to the PLOT. I’d coach, “Try not to just use any DETAILS that are unnecessary.Only use specific details that will support the PLOT by helping to move the story right along to the CLIMAX.

“And secondly, the most essential key to a good short story is CONFLICT”. So I would prompt them: “Can you imagine a story without useful DETAILS, or (heaven forbid!) without a CONFLICT? I mean, what would that even look like? How boring would that be?

“Well here, let’ me show you’s find out. Here’s a little song by Bob Dylan.” And boy, would the kids ever really perk right up at his name. “Like wow, Bob Dylan! This class is really gonna rock!”

Unfortunately for them, this particular Bob Dylan song was going to be a real nothingburger, Dylan’s most comically boring recording ever. Which was my point. I mean, just look at the limpid title for starters:

“CLOTHES LINE SAGA”

After a while we took in the clothes
Nobody said very much
Just some old wild shirts and a couple pairs of pants
Which nobody really wanted to touch
Mama come in and picked up a book
An’ Papa asked her what it was
Someone else asked, “What do you care?”
Papa said, “Well, just because”
Then they started to take back their clothes
Hang ’em on the line
It was January the thirtieth
And everybody was feelin’ fine

The next day everybody got up
Seeing if the clothes were dry
The dogs were barking, a neighbor passed
Mama, of course, she said, “Hi”
“Have you heard the news?” he said with a grin
“The Vice-President’s gone mad!”
“Where?” “Downtown” “When?” “Last night”
“Hmm, say, that’s too bad”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it,” said the neighbor
“It’s just something we’re gonna have to forget”
“Yes, I guess so,” said Ma
Then she asked me if the clothes were still wet

I reached up, touched my shirt
And the neighbor said, “Are those clothes yours?”
I said, “Some of them, not all of them”
He said, “Ya always help out around here with the chores?”
I said, “Sometime, not all the time”
Then my neighbor, he blew his nose
Just as Papa yelled outside
“Mama wants you to come back in the house and bring them clothes”
(Woo-hoo)
Well, I just do what I’m told
So, I did it, of course
I went back in the house and Mama met me
And then I shut all the doors

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Back in 2009, my wife and I were fortunate to score front row seats at a concert in Albuquerque, NM. The concert featured the duo of Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt, both singer/songwriters. Both songwriters had a very good sense of humor, as was illustrated in some of their music.

This next song, “Old People” by singer/songwriter John Hiatt, makes me feel grateful because (ahem) I’m not one of them yet…

“OLD PEOPLE”

Old people are pushy
They don’t have much time
They’ll shove you at the coffee shop
Cut ahead in the buffet line

They’ll buy two for a dollar and 50
Then they’ll argue with the checkout girl
They’ve lived so much behind them
They’re tryin’ to slow down this goddamn world

Old people are pushy
Well, they’re not mushy
Old people are pushy ’cause life ain’t cushy

Old people are pushy
They’ll drive how they want to drive
And go as slow as they want to
They don’t care who stays alive

And they’ll kiss that little grand baby
Up and down the back and all around the front
They don’t care what you think of them
That baby has got something that they want

Old people are pushy, well they’re not mushy
Old people are pushy, cause life ain’t cushy
(Old people are pushy, they aren’t mushy)
(Old people are pushy, cause life ain’t cushy)

Old people are pushy, cause you don’t know how they feel
And when you pretend you do
Well they know it’s not real
Pretty soon it’s gonna be all over
Good enough reason not to let you pass
They done seem like sweet, little old people
But they are not about to kiss your ass

Old people are pushy, well they’re not mushy
Old people are pushy, cause life ain’t cushy
Old people are pushy, (old people are pushy)
Old people are pushy, (old people are pushy)
Old people are pushy, (old people are pushy)
‘Cause life ain’t cushy
Old people are pushy,
Old people are pushy
Old people are pushy
Cause life ain’t cushy

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lyle Lovett also has a quirky sense of humor. He has written some very serious and beautiful songs in his lifetime, but songs like this one, “Don’t Touch My Hat” always put a Lyle Lovett smile on my mug…

“DON’T TOUCH MY HAT”

Man you better let go
You can’t hold on to
What belongs to me
And don’t belong to you

I caught you looking
With your roving eye
So Mister you don’t have to act
So surprised

If it’s her you want
I don’t care about that
You can have my girl
But don’t touch my hat

I grew up lonesome
On the open range
And that cold North wind
Can make a man feel strange

My John B. Stetson
Was my only friend
And we’ve stuck together
Through many a woman

So if it’s her you want
I don’t care about that
You can have my girl
But don’t touch my hat

My mama told me
Son, to be polite
Take your hat off
When you walk inside

But the winds of change
They fill the air
And you can’t set your hat down
Just anywhere

So if you plead not guilty
I’ll be the judge
We don’t need no jury
To decide because

I wear a seven
And you’re out of order
‘Cause I can tell from here
You’re a seven and a quarter

But if it’s her you want
I don’t care about that
You can have my girl
But don’t touch my hat

If it’s her you want
I don’t care about that
You can have my girl
But don’t touch my hat

No it never complains
And it never cries
And it looks so good
And it fits just right

But if it’s her you want
I don’t care about that
You can have my girl
But don’t touch my hat

You can have my girl
But don’t touch my hat
You can have my girl
But don’t touch my hat

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The following story/song was written by one of my favorite songwriters of all time, Harry Chapin, the man who wrote “Cat’s in the Cradle” and so many more. Humor comes in many forms. There are very different flavors of humor. In this case, the humor’s kinda grim. But man, what this wordsmith does with words! WARNING: Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen. You are going for one hell of a ride…

“30,000 POUNDS… OF BANANAS”

It was just after dark when the truck started down
The hill that leads into Scranton Pennsylvania.
Carrying thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
Carrying thirty thousand pounds (hit it Big John) of bananas.

He was a young driver,
Just out on his second job.
And he was carrying the next day’s pasty fruits
For everyone in that coal-scarred city
Where children played without despair
In backyard slag-piles and folks manage to eat each day
Just about thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
Yes, just about thirty thousand pounds (scream it again, John) .

He passed a sign that he should have seen,
Saying “shift to low gear, a fifty dollar fine my friend.”
He was thinking perhaps about the warm-breathed woman
Who was waiting at the journey’s end.
He started down the two mile drop,
The curving road that wound from the top of the hill.
He was pushing on through the shortening miles that ran down to the depot.
Just a few more miles to go,
Then he’d go home and have her ease his long, cramped day away.
And the smell of thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
Yes the smell of thirty thousand pounds of bananas.

He was picking speed as the city spread its twinkling lights below him.
But he paid no heed as the shivering thoughts of the nights’
Delights went through him.
His foot nudged the brakes to slow him down.
But the pedal floored easy without a sound.
He said “Christ!”
It was funny how he had named the only man who could save him now.
He was trapped inside a dead-end hellslide,
Riding on his fear-hunched back
Was every one of those yellow green
I’m telling you thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of bananas.

He barely made the sweeping curve that led into the steepest grade.
And he missed the thankful passing bus at ninety miles an hour.
And he said “God, make it a dream!”
As he rode his last ride down.
And he said “God, make it a dream!”
As he rode his last ride down.
And he sideswiped nineteen neat parked cars,
Clipped off thirteen telephone poles,
Hit two houses, bruised eight trees,
And Blue-Crossed seven people.
It was then he lost his head,
Not to mention an arm or two before he stopped.
And he smeared for four hundred yards
Along the hill that leads into Scranton, Pennsylvania.
All those thirty thousand pounds of bananas.

You know the man who told me about it on the bus,
As it went up the hill out of Scranton, Pennsylvania,
He shrugged his shoulders, he shook his head,
And he said (and this is exactly what he said)
“Boy that sure must’ve been something.
Just imagine thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of mashed bananas.
Of bananas. Just bananas. Thirty thousand pounds.
Of bananas. not no driver now. Just bananas!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(Iris Dement and John Prine:)

After that one, let’s end on a quirky-sweet “love’ song by John Prine and Iris Dement… “In Spite of Ourselves”

This duet with Iris Dement was written with Iris in mind. Prine’s wife said she called Iris to tease her
about the song and Dement said it took a lot of courage to sing some of the lines the first few times.

She don’t like her eggs all runny
She thinks crossin’ her legs is funny
She looks down her nose at money
She gets it on like the Easter Bunny
She’s my baby I’m her honey
I’m never gonna let her go

He ain’t got laid in a month of Sundays
I caught him once and he was sniffin’ my undies
He ain’t real sharp but he gets things done
Drinks his beer like it’s oxygen
He’s my baby
And I’m his honey
Never gonna let him go

In spite of ourselves
We’ll end up a’sittin’ on a rainbow
Against all odds
Honey, we’re the big door prize
We’re gonna spite our noses
Right off of our faces
There won’t be nothin’ but big old hearts
Dancin’ in our eyes.

She thinks all my jokes are corny
Convict movies make her horny
She likes ketchup on her scrambled eggs
Swears like a sailor when shaves her legs
She takes a lickin’
And keeps on tickin’
I’m never gonna let her go.

He’s got more balls than a big brass monkey
He’s a whacked out weirdo and a lovebug junkie
Sly as a fox and crazy as a loon
Payday comes and he’s howlin’ at the moon
He’s my baby I don’t mean maybe
Never gonna let him go

In spite of ourselves
We’ll end up a sittin’ on a rainbow
Against all odds
Honey, we’re the big door prize
We’re gonna spite our noses
Right off of our faces
There won’t be nothin’ but big old hearts
Dancin’ in our eyes.
There won’t be nothin’ but big old hearts
Dancin’ in our eyes.

(spoken) In spite of ourselves

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So yeah… Now you know a little more about me, and where me brain’s been.

Stay tuned if you dare for Part II, coming soon, wherein I will share with you music from my stash that I feel is not only creatively composed,but has been honestly impactful and instructive in my life.

Thank you for Listening.

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